Antibacterial easy adjustable woven compression bandage for venous leg ulcers

The proposed study aims in first part to discuss the structure and behavior of short-stretch cotton woven compression bandage (WCB), and in second part the production and properties of multifunctional WCB. The bandage includes an integrated tension sensor, which causes a change in the spacing of colored threads during its deformation. The motivation of this research was to investigate the optimum techniques for compression therapy using a modified construction of cotton WCB as a tensiometer. The aim of second part is focused on an industrial product which has the easy adjustable compression and antibacterial properties. Multifunctional WCB can be produced by two methods, the first was using highly twisted warp yarns (ply twist 1800 to 2200 twist/m) and the weft yarns will be treated with silver Nano-particles (NPs). The second method was post-treatment of the WCB with three concentrations of zinc oxide NPs 1–3 % in powder form with 15 g/L acrylic binder. Silver NPs coated yarns showed a comparable antibacterial activity on both tested bacterial strains (Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus) using quantitative and qualitative test methods. The WCB tested samples achieved 95–99% bacteria reduction, the nanoparticles size and its distribution were confirmed by the Zetasizer Nano, the scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDXS). The practical bandage pressure by PicoPress showed significant deviations compared with theoretical pressure calculated by Laplace’s equation ranges ±0.68 to ±15.64% especially at the highest extension levels.