Smart bactericidal textile enabling in-situ visual assessment of antimicrobial activity
Author
Publication date
2025ISSN
2590-0064
Abstract
Hospital fabrics and wound dressings with antibacterial properties are essential to minimize infection risks associated with bacterial colonization of textiles. A key challenge of these materials lies in the difficulty in assessing their functional lifespan. Integrating bacterial-sensing elements into smart textiles enables real-time and in-situ evaluation of antibacterial activity. However, this approach is often hindered by the reactivity between bactericidal and bacterial-sensing components, the limited stability and selectivity of the sensing probes, and high production costs. Here, we address these challenges by presenting a smart textile that simultaneously provides antibacterial activity and bacterial-sensing capacity using a layer-by-layer sonochemical deposition method. Prussian blue, a chromogenic bacterial-sensing probe, is integrated onto hospital-grade antibacterial fabrics containing copper oxide nanoparticles. When the biocidal fabric begins to lose its antimicrobial activity, live bacteria in the textile metabolically reduce Prussian blue nanoparticles, triggering a visible colour change. This approach offers several key advantages, such as: (i) the resulting textile retains antibacterial activity comparable to conventional copper oxide-based textiles (A value > 4 in both cases); (ii) it provides a direct and visible colour transition from blue to colourless (>20 % colour losses) when the antibacterial coating begins to lose effectiveness, enabling straightforward monitoring of antibacterial lifespan without external instruments or reagents; (iii) the co-immobilization enhances coating stability, nearly doubling the binding strength of copper oxide and Prussian blue compared to single-layer coatings; and (iv), the additional Prussian blue layer significantly reduces the material cytotoxicity, enhancing biocompatibility for safer use in healthcare settings. These innovations offer a scalable, cost-effective, and multifunctional solution for infection control. The smart textile not only prevents bacterial spread but also provides timely, visual indications of coating degradation, making it a promising tool for improving patient safety in hospitals and for minimizing infection risks in schools and other high-risk environments.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Published version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
61 - Medical sciences
Keywords
Pages
13
Publisher
Elsevier
Collection
32
Is part of
Materials Today Bio
Citation
Ferrer Vilanova, Amparo; Jimenez Ezenarro, Josune; Ivanova, Kristina [et al.]. Smart bactericidal textile enabling in-situ visual assessment of antimicrobial activity. Materials Today Bio, 2025, 32, 101724. Disponible en: <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590006425002832>. Fecha de acceso: 30 abr. 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.mtbio.2025.101724
Note
This work was supported by the European Commission through the project PROTECT (H2020-NMBP-PILOT-720851). Some of these experiments were performed at the CLAESS beamline at ALBA Synchrotron with the collaboration of ALBA staff (proposal 2021024980). The authors thank the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain for financial support through the project PID2019-106171RB-I00, FJC2020-044866-I/MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and European Union “NextGenerationEU”/PRTR”.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Ciències de la Salut [952]
Rights
© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/