Investigation of antifungal and antibacterial effects of fabric padded with highly stable selenium nanoparticles

ABSTRACT In this article, highly stable selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) were padded onto fabric to obtain, for the first time, antifungal and antibacterial fabric. SeNPs are prepared from a simple food‐grade redox system by using polysaccharide–protein complexes (PSPs) isolated from the mushroom sclerotia of Pleurotus tuber‐regium (tiger milk mushroom) as a modifier or stabilizer. The novel PSP–SeNPs are highly stable, size‐controllable, and water‐dispersible. Different amounts of PSP–SeNPs were applied onto fabric by using the pad–dry–cure method. It was found that the fabric treated with PSP–SeNPs can inhibit more than 99.7% of Trichophyton rubrum growth over a testing period of 7 days. The inhibition of Staphylococcus is effective in the first 12 h. The fabric treated with PSP–SeNPs is a promising material that can potentially be used inside shoes as insoles or shoe material to reduce the possibility of tinea pedis infection usually caused by the T. rubrum fungus. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 40728.