Antimicrobial Reagents as Functional Finishing for Textiles Intended for Biomedical Applications. III. Other Metals and Metallic Compounds

Abstract

Abstract-Some metals and metallic compounds are known to exhibit high toxicity at very low concentrations towards a wide variety of microorganisms. This characteristic -the antimicrobial activity -has been used in medicine and health care for bactericide purposes. This paper summarizes some of the most interesting studies concerning metals and metallic compounds (oxides, salts, complexes etc.) with biocide activity, their formulation and mechanism of action, as well as specific finishing techniques employed in order to obtain metal or metallic compound-functionalized textiles for biomedical applications.

Anti-microbial finishing for natural textile fabrics

“…Antimicrobial Finishes are needed to achieve the following objectives: a) Prevent cross-infection by pathogenic and parasitic microorganisms which are common in the medical environment, b) Microbial infestation control, c) Arresting metabolism of bacteria to reduce odor formation, and d) Protection against stained, discolored and degraded apparel goods. [7,8] Where bacteria can be found? • Under-shirts carry staphylococcal epidermis and coryneform bacteria, these bacteria are responsible for the smell of the body.…”

“…[13,20] Its antimicrobial activity has been tested of wool as the protein base, cotton as cellulose base, polyamides, and polyester as a synthetic base, 10-100mg/l was the value of MIC, and good reproducibility, as well as good washing durability, has been presented. [7] However, its usage as an antimicrobial agent in textile finishes is limited due to its high solubility in water. [14] The N-halamines N-halamines are heterocyclic organic compounds containing at least one nitrogen-halogen (N-X) covalent bond which is normally formed by the halogenation of imide, amide, or amine groups.…”

“…This reaction can be done in the presence of water and results in the presence of free chlorine cations able to bind to the acceptor regions on microorganism and, afterward, Impede their enzymes and metabolism, that leads to the destruction of microorganisms. [7] It is applied by the pad-dry method followed by exposure to chlorine bleach for developing antimicrobial cotton fabric. The chlorinated samples exhibited potential antimicrobial ability against gram +ve and Gram -ve pathogens.…”

Highly Specialized Textiles with Antimicrobial Functionality—Advances and Challenges

“…Subsequently, the scientific literature recorded an increase in the number of articles reporting on antimicrobial textiles and their specific finishing, reagents, and processing. A bibliometric analysis indicated in 2021 a number of publications of 534 articles per year [5], but the domain is very active and the rapid progress is abundantly documented by the most recent literature reports, which also illustrate the variety of new features connected to the subject [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”