What is it about?
It has been shown that the process of TiO2 doping with various metal or non-metal elements can extend or enhance their photoactivity under visible light, making it useful not only for the treatment of polluted water, but also for the development of antimicrobial agents and materials. Our treated cotton knits coated with Fe-N doped TiO2 nanoparticles exhibited specific antimicrobial properties against E. coli, P. aeruginosa and S. aureus. In addition, the in vitro biocompatibility evaluation on dermal fibroblast cells confirmed the absence of cytotoxicity after short-term exposure, sustaining the possible use of these innovative cotton textiles after further studies on the long-term skin exposure effects and the possible particle release due to wearing.
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Why is it important?
High amounts of waste are generated from textile industry and released into the aquatic environment via effluents, where nanoparticles may pose an ecological risk, while the photocatalyst recovery from the used dispersion is a very expensive process at the industrial scale. Therefore, the novelty our research was the re-use of the TiO2 dispersion resulting from the textiles’ treatment, thus reducing the amount of doped TiO2 released into the environment and, also, decreasing the consumption of water and chemicals.
Perspectives
Writing this article was a great pleasure as it has very cooperative co-authors. The results look promising for the further use of these modified fabrics in the development of novel textiles with improved antimicrobial properties for biomedical purposes. I hope you find this article useful for your research.
Cristina Nica
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Photocatalytic, Antimicrobial and Biocompatibility Features of Cotton Knit Coated with Fe-N-Doped Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles, Materials, September 2016, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/ma9090789.
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