研究人员首次找到了一种经济高效且方便的方式，可以将基于银的抗菌透明涂层应用于新的或现有的纺织品。他们的方法使用多酚，在食品中通常发现的食品臭名昭著，以染色的衣服，例如葡萄酒和巧克力。研究人员的方法可以治疗一系列纺织类型，并且可以多次洗涤项目而不会失去抗微生物，因此可以抗反应性质。
It may be winter for half the world right now, but before too long the warm weather will return, bringing with it beach trips, ice cream, insect bites, and of course, sweat. There are many kinds of products that can be worn or applied to the body which aim to reduce body odor, but these often come with a compromise such as expense, breathability, limited choice, or something else. Some of these make use of silver, which is well known for its antimicrobial properties, but can be difficult to apply to things like clothes in an easy and efficient way.
A team led by researchers from the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Engineering has pioneered a way to apply an antimicrobial silver coating to textiles that is cost effective, simple and has some useful implications too. They essentially used a compound known as a polyphenol, tannic acid (TA) specifically, to bind silver (Ag) to fabrics. Polyphenols are found in chocolate and red wine amongst other things, and are responsible for their infamous ability to stain clothing and tablecloths. Fortunately, the researchers' coating, called Ag/TA, is completely clear so it doesn't discolor textiles, but best of all, it can survive being washed.
"As kids often do, my son stained his shirt with chocolate one day, and I couldn't scrub it out,"博士后研究员约瑟夫·理查森（Joseph Richardson）说。“副教授Hirotaka Ejima和我研究了多酚已有十多年了，但是这次巧克力事件使我考虑使用单宁酸将银与织物结合到织物上。我们认为我们已经找到了两种方法来将我们的抗菌银涂层应用于纺织品，合适的纺织品，合适的纺织品，对于不同的用例。”
第一种方法可能对商业服装或织物生产商有用。纺织品可以简单地浸入银化合物和多酚粘合剂的混合物中。另一种方法，可能更适合于包括房屋在内的小型设置，是用银色化合物，然后再用多酚粘合剂喷涂衣服。一个明显的优势是人们可以将涂层添加到现有的服装中。
“但是最令人兴奋的不是易于应用，而是涂层的效果，”理查森说。"We wanted to study the effect of the antimicrobial coating not just on odor-causing bacteria, but also on fungi and pathogens like viruses. With so many variables to control, it was a challenge of time and complexity to test variations of compounds against variations of microorganisms. But through carefully optimizing our testing methods, we found that the coating neutralizes everything we tested it on. So Ag/TA could be useful in hospitals and other ideally sterile environments."
The binding power of TA is so strong that coated textiles tested by the researchers like cotton, polyester and even silk, maintain antimicrobial and anti-odor properties for at least 10 washes.
“这不仅仅是实验室的假设情况，我已经尝试了自己的衬衫，袜子，鞋子，甚至是我的浴室，”理查森说。“我们想看看多酚可能有助于结合织物。抗菌银可能只是开始。”
资源：https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/