Quaternary ammonium-based coating of textiles is effective against bacteria and viruses with a low risk to human health

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 20556 - 12
• Main Authors: Meier, Philipp, Clement, Pietro, Altenried, Stefanie, Reina, Giacomo, Ren, Qun, Züst, Roland, Enger, Olivier, Choi, Francis, Nestle, Nikolaus, Deisenroth, Ted, Neubauer, Peter, Wick, Peter
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 23-11-2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/326/421; 631/326/596; 639/925/928/1065; 639/925/928/1069; 692/699/255/1318; 692/699/255/2514; Abrasion; Ammonium; Ammonium Compounds; Animals; Anti-Bacterial Agents - pharmacology; Antibacterial activity; Antiviral activity; Antiviral Agents; Bacteria; Coatings; COVID-19; Drug resistance; Global health; Hepatitis; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Mice; multidisciplinary; Multidrug resistance; Pandemics; Performance assessment; Public health; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Textiles; Textiles - microbiology; Toxicity; Viruses
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-47707-3

While the global healthcare system is slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, new multi-drug-resistant pathogens are emerging as the next threat. To tackle these challenges there is a need for safe and sustainable antiviral and antibacterial functionalized materials. Here we develop an 'easy-to-apply' procedure for the surface functionalization of textiles, rendering them antiviral and antibacterial and assessing the performance of these textiles. A metal-free quaternary ammonium-based coating was applied homogeneously and non-covalently to hospital curtains. Abrasion, durability testing, and aging resulted in little change in the performance of the treated textile. Additionally, qualitative and quantitative antibacterial assays on
Staphylococcus aureus
,
Pseudomonas aeruginosa,
and
Acinetobacter baumanii
revealed excellent antibacterial activity with a CFU reduction of 98–100% within only 4 h of exposure. The treated curtain was aged 6 months before testing. Similarly, the antiviral activity tested according to ISO-18184 with murine hepatitis virus (MHV) showed > 99% viral reduction with the functionalized curtain. Also, the released active compounds of the coating 24 ± 5 µg mL
−1
revealed no acute in vitro skin toxicity (IC
50
: 95 µg mL
−1
) and skin sensitization. This study emphasizes the potential of safe and sustainable metal-free textile coatings for the rapid antiviral and antibacterial functionalization of textiles.