Self-activated antibacterial and antiviral cotton textiles based on ZnO nanowire p-n homojunction via electro-mechanical intervention

ZnO nanowire in-situ growth on cotton textiles via interface coordination strategy. • Self-activating electro-mechanical intervention for high antibacterial properties. • Modified textiles maintain above 95% against bacteria and viruses after 50 washings. • The antibacterial and antiviral function can be activated by mild finger pressure. The risk of bacterial infection and transmission via textiles has escalated into a significant public health crisis. Herein, self-activated electro-mechanical intervention based on ZnO nanowires was applied to confer high antibacterial efficiency on the textile. This study proposes an interfacial coordination strategy, in which the pre-coordinated Zn 2+ ions on cellulose induce the in-situ growth of a uniform and stable ZnO seed layer on cotton textiles (CTs), thereby enabling the subsequent in-situ growth of Li‑doped ZnO nanowires (Li-doped ZnO nanowires and ZnO seed layer were constructed as a p-n homojunction). The functionalized CTs (LZnO/CTs) generate dual electric fields (piezoelectric field and the built-in field at the p-n junction) under piezoelectric response to induce continuous electron depletion in bacteria; while the nanowire structure enables physical piercing of bacterial membranes to achieve antibacterial purposes. LZnO/CTs showed superior efficient inhibition of E. coli (99.56%), S. aureus (97.19%), and MS2 (99.99%) within 2 min, respectively, via electro-mechanical. Moreover, the modification process preserves the intrinsic physical properties of the textiles, and the sterilization functionality can be readily activated by mild finger pressure. The highly efficient antibacterial and antiviral functional surface on cotton textiles demonstrates substantial practical application potential in personal wearable devices and medical environments. Download: Download high-res image (219KB) Download: Download full-size image