Development of copper impregnated bio-inspired hydrophobic antibacterial nanocoatings for textiles

Due to their bactericidal and fluid repellent capabilities, antimicrobial textiles with hydrophobic properties have aroused a lot of interest in healthcare, hygiene, air purifiers, water purification systems, food packaging, and other domains. Silver and silver-derived compounds have long been employed in antimicrobial coatings; nevertheless, they are costly, limiting their widespread use. In this work, we combined mussel-inspired polydopamine (pDA) coating chemistry with graphene oxide (GO) and antimicrobial copper compounds (Cu(NO₃)₂, CuCl₂, Cu nanoparticles (CuNPs), and Cu-Carbon nanofibers (Cu-CNF)) to create hydrophobic antimicrobial nanocoatings on cotton fabric. The structural, morphological, wettability, and antibacterial characteristics of the produced coatings were evaluated. The fabric coated with Cu(NO₃)₂ and CuNPs had good hydrophobicity, which was stabilized for 30 min following GO integration. The coated fabric with GO and CuNPs showed 100% bacterial inhibition for S. aureus and a 99.995% reduction for P. aeruginosa bacteria. Overall, this bioinspired approach to developing antimicrobial coatings on fabric utilizing Cu(NO₃)₂ and CuNPs with GO shows a lot of promise in preventing the transmission of bacterial and viral infections through contaminated garments and has potential in designing clothing for healthcare settings such as PPEs, gowns, aprons, face mask filters, curtains, and so on.