Durable and Rechargeable Antimicrobial Textiles

In accordance with the Phase I solicitation, Medetech Development Corporation proposed and investigated our novel water-soluble, self-curable, aqueous epoxy-based polymeric N-halamine antimicrobial textile finishing technology. The ultimate objective of this proposed project is to develop robust scalable architectures for antimicrobial textiles to provide antimicrobial uniforms and undergarments for soldiers to control body odor and reduce the risk of infection. The materials can also be used as antimicrobial medical textiles for medical shelters and military hospitals to control the transmission of pathogenic bacteria in the field. The main objective of phase I of this SBIR project was to demonstrate the feasibility of producing durable and rechargeable N-halamine-based antimicrobial textiles via a simple, practical, and eco-friendly approach. This goal has been achieved, Dr. Zhengbing Cao and his teams phase I work on the development of N-halamine-based fabrics in Medetechshowed encouraging results, as described below. The Phase I results demonstrated that Medetechs new HalomineTM technology could reliably enable the creation of efficiacious functional coatings on cotton and polyester (see the sections below).