About A New Type Of Antibacterial Material

Russia's St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technology and Design has developed a technology for making new antibacterial materials from silk waste.

This antibacterial material is made of a non-woven material made of silk waste. All fungi, gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria and viruses deposited on its surface will die within 24 hours. It can be used in the medical field and can also be used Used in the manufacture of daily sportswear and sports shoes.

Silk has unique characteristics that neither synthetic nor natural fibers have. It is very strong, has good moisture absorption, good air permeability, and is biocompatible and does not cause allergies. Unlike cotton, silk is resistant to microorganisms, bacteria and fungi.

But what is less known is that only half of raw silk can reach consumers in the form of products, and the other half will become waste products.

The St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technology and Design team developed a method to obtain materials from non-recyclable silk waste.

Olga Yakovleveva, one of the authors of the research and development and a master's student in the Department of Chemical Technology of the University, introduced that the fiber waste of silk is chemically treated to form uniform silk strands on the carding machine, and then processed by a needle punching machine to obtain a A strong, breathable and highly porous material that can have different thicknesses and areal densities.

Afterwards, the material is impregnated with a solution to form silver and copper nanoparticles in its porous structure. By using neural networks to process the results of multi-factor experiments (reagent concentration, immersion conditions), the number and size of nanoparticles can also be controlled.