Novel antibacterial silver coating on PET fabric assisted with hollow‐cathode glow discharge

Abstract

The silver-coated fabrics are of much importance because of their outstanding antibacterial features and are useable in several medical and hygienic applications. The silver deposition on fabrics by conventional techniques is not feasible because of their high processing cost, long processing duration, complex equipment, and multiple steps processing (nanoparticle synthesis and subsequent deposition on fabrics). In this novel study, the antibacterial silver coating is deposited by using a hollow cathode discharge (HCD) capable of generating high-density plasma, and thus it exhibits high-efficiency processing. The silver is deposited on woven and non-woven PET fabrics for various treatment times (10-60 minutes), and their antibacterial performance against E. coli and S. aureus bacterial is tested. The XRD results verified the deposition of silver with (111) preferred orientation, while SEM analysis depicted the uniform/ homogeneous deposition of silver particles. The interfacial free energy of adhesion depicts that after the silver deposition on both fabrics, the surface is actively unfavorable for bacterial adhesion. The antibacterial test revealed that the silver-coated woven and non-woven PET fabrics exhibit exceptional antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus bacteria. As the HCD technique is relatively cost-effective, no need for specific sputtering targets, eco-friendly, and require single-step processing for silver deposition. Thus the results are expected to be of remarkable importance to prepare silver-coated antibacterial fabrics useable in hospitals and other appropriate applications.

Deposition of Copper on Polyester Knitwear Fibers by a Magnetron Sputtering System. Physical Properties and Evaluation of Antimicrobial Response of New Multi-Functional Composite Materials

“…Moreover, due to its own porosity PET is conducive to microbial adhesion and subsequent bacteria colonization [16]. Therefore, for improvement of antimicrobial properties PET was subjected to several surface modification technologies [17,18], the majority based on functionalization [19,20], grafting [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28], surface topography modification [29][30][31][32][33], coating [34][35][36][37] and their combinations [38][39][40].…”

Antimicrobial Modification of PET by Insertion of Menthoxy-Triazine

“…Until now, various substances with bactericidal activity, including quaternary ammonium salts (QAS), − metal nanoparticles − and N -halamine, , were introduced into PET to endow it with a strong antimicrobial performance by compounding, grafting, and other methods. For example, Wei et al used PEG and silver nanoparticles to modify PET with a microporous structure by a composite method, and doping 1% content of silver nanoparticles gave the PET film a good antibacterial ability .…”

Evaluation of Corrosion Resistance of Thin Films Formed on AISI 316L Steel by Plasma Using Hastelloy as Cathodic Cage

“…Plasma deposition procedure is a promising technique that can be used to supply thin films, aiming at applications such as magnetron sputtering, [ 2,3,6,10,12,18,35–37 ] hollow cathode, [ 41,42 ] active screen, [ 43–45 ] and plasma electrolytic. [ 37,46–50 ] The cathodic cage deposition process has been used for the deposition of thin films with improved physical–chemical properties with well‐defined compositions such as iron nitride, [ 51–53 ] titanium nitride, [ 54–57 ] titanium oxide, [ 58 ] copper oxide, [ 59–61 ] and molybdenum nitride.…”