Preparation of Cotton Coated with ZnO-Ag Hybrid NPs for Photocatalytic Inactivation of Bacteria Under LED Light

The use of effective antimicrobial surfaces could reduce both healthcare-associated infections and the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. This paper introduced a new method of embedding ZnO-Ag hybrid NPs into cotton using a simple two-step synthesis. The effect of the concentration of the Ag nitrate solution, the hydrophobicity of the samples, their morphology, and the quantity of NPs on the samples were determined. The amount of ZnO in the samples ranged from 0.049 to 0.27 mg/cm2, and the amount of Ag varied between 0.0108 and 0.022 mg/cm2. The antibacterial activity of the samples was tested against Gram-negative E. coli bacteria in the dark and under LED light. The samples exhibited up to 100% antibacterial efficiency under LED light in just a few tens of minutes. From these results, a mechanism of photocatalytic inhibition under LED light of bacterial growth was proposed. Together, these results demonstrate that cotton coated with ZnO-Ag hybrid NPs prepared in this study is a promising material for the creation of antimicrobial textiles.