What types of antibacterial materials can be used in textiles?

Commonly used antibacterial treatment methods mainly include: antibacterial finishing agents can be mainly divided into inorganic, organic and natural. Early antibacterial agents basically belonged to organic series, and most of them were complexes containing elements such as nitrogen, sulfur and chlorine. The main varieties are: quaternary ammonium salts, biguanides, alcohols, phenols, aldehydes, organometallic, phosphorus, thiophene and so on. This kind of antibacterial agent has good short-term bactericidal effect, but most of them have the disadvantages of poor thermal stability and short life.

The representative inorganic antibacterial agents are nano zinc oxide, nano titanium dioxide and nano silver-loaded inorganic antibacterial agents, and the application of nano technology to develop antibacterial textiles mainly includes addition method and post-finishing method. Addition method is to add nano-materials into spinning solution to produce synthetic fibers with antibacterial properties. Its advantage is that nano-powder is evenly dispersed in the fiber, so it has good durability and stable antibacterial effect. Natural fibers, such as cotton, can only be treated after finishing because functional materials cannot be added in the production process. Nano-powder was treated on the fabric by padding and coating, so that the fabric obtained antibacterial properties.

Among natural antibacterial agents, chitin, chitosan and insect antibacterial egg sperm are mainly extracted from animals, while antibacterial agents extracted from minerals such as juniper oil, mugwort, aloe, sorbic acid, curcumol, licorice and tea are mainly extracted from plants. Chitosan is a widely used natural antibacterial agent. Chitosan mainly comes from crab shells, shrimp shells, shells and insect skins, as well as the cell walls of fungi and enzymes. It is rich in resources, biodegradable, well absorbed, safe and non-toxic.