Novel process for coating textile materials with silver to prepare antimicrobial fabrics

The technology of applying a silver coating on fabric is presented. Tissue is wetted with a solution of copper sulphate, which is then reduced to metal-phosphide by phosphine treatment. Wetting can be carried out by immersing the fabric in a copper sulphate solution or spraying the solution onto the fabric using a sprayer. The subsequent processing step is the immersion of the fabric in a solution of silver nitrate, during this copper phosphide is transformed to a silver coating. The developed technology allows achieving a good grip of the fabric with a continuous silver films with a thickness from 40 to 600 nm. Using copper sulphate spray, coatings consisting of individual dots or clusters of silver were obtained. The silver coated tissues exhibited antimicrobial activity even after 10 washing. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.