title: Scalable and Environmentally Benign Process for Smart Textile Nanofinishing.
abstract: A major challenge in nanotechnology is that of determining how to introduce green and sustainable principles when assembling individual nanoscale elements to create working devices. For instance, textile nanofinishing is restricted by the many constraints of traditional pad-dry-cure processes, such as the use of costly chemical precursors to produce nanoparticles (NPs), the high liquid and energy consumption, the production of harmful liquid wastes, and multistep batch operations. By integrating low-cost, scalable, and environmentally benign aerosol processes of the type proposed here into textile nanofinishing, these constraints can be circumvented while leading to a new class of fabrics. The proposed one-step textile nanofinishing process relies on the diffusional deposition of aerosol NPs onto textile fibers. As proof of this concept, we deposit Ag NPs onto a range of textiles and assess their antimicrobial properties for two strains of bacteria (i.e., Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae). The measurements show that the logarithmic reduction in bacterial count can get as high as ca. 5.5 (corresponding to a reduction efficiency of 99.96%) when the Ag loading is 1 order of magnitude less (10 ppm; i.e., 10 mg Ag NPs per kg of textile) than that of textiles treated by traditional wet-routes. The antimicrobial activity does not increase in proportion to the Ag content above 10 ppm as a consequence of a "saturation" effect. Such low NP loadings on antimicrobial textiles minimizes the risk to human health (during textile use) and to the ecosystem (after textile disposal), as well as it reduces potential changes in color and texture of the resulting textile products. After three washes, the release of Ag is in the order of 1 wt %, which is comparable to textiles nanofinished with wet routes using binders. Interestingly, the washed textiles exhibit almost no reduction in antimicrobial activity, much as those of as-deposited samples. Considering that a realm of functional textiles can be nanofinished by aerosol NP deposition, our results demonstrate that the proposed approach, which is universal and sustainable, can potentially lead to a wide number of applications.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Science, Delft University of Technology , Julianalaan 136, 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jicheng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Institute for Technology of Nanostructures and Center for Nanointegration Duisburg-Essen (CENIDE), University of Duisburg-Essen , Bismarckstrasse 81, 47057 Duisburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hontañón
authors.affiliation: Department of Technical Finishing and Comfort, AITEX , Plaza Emilio Sala 1, 03801 Alcoy, Spain.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Blanes
authors.affiliation: Institute for Mechanical Process Engineering and Mechanics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) , Strasse am Forum 8, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Jörg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.affiliation: Institute for Mechanical Process Engineering and Mechanics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) , Strasse am Forum 8, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Xiaoai
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Foundation for the Promotion of the Textile Industry (FOMENTEX) , Els Telers 20, 46870 Ontinyent, Spain.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Science, Delft University of Technology , Julianalaan 136, 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Paltrinieri
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Science, Delft University of Technology , Julianalaan 136, 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Nabil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ramlawi
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Science, Delft University of Technology , Julianalaan 136, 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands.|Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, Wageningen University , Stippeneng 4, 6708 WE Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Louis C P M de
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Smet
authors.affiliation: Institute for Mechanical Process Engineering and Mechanics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) , Strasse am Forum 8, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Hermann
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nirschl
authors.affiliation: Institute for Technology of Nanostructures and Center for Nanointegration Duisburg-Essen (CENIDE), University of Duisburg-Essen , Bismarckstrasse 81, 47057 Duisburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Frank Einar
authors.initials: FE
authors.lastname: Kruis
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Science, Delft University of Technology , Julianalaan 136, 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schmidt-Ott
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Applied Science, Delft University of Technology , Julianalaan 136, 2628 BL Delft, The Netherlands.|Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology , 2628 CN Delft, The Netherlands.|Energy Environment and Water Research Center, The Cyprus Institute , Nicosia 2121, Cyprus.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Biskos
keywords: aerosol deposition; antibacterial; leaching test; nanoparticles; textile nanofinishing