Green synthesized clavate-shaped ZnO modified silk fabric with aging resistance and outstanding antibacterial and UV-shielding properties

Silk, a popular luxury textile with many years of history, is easy to embrittle and adsorb bacteria when stored for a long time or exposed to sunlight, which affects its service life. To improve the silk fabrics with excellent antibacterial activity, washing and aging durability, and UV shielding, multifunctional silk fabrics were designed and fabricated via a green finishing approach. Here, we proposed a simple strategy to fabricate silk fabrics with multi-functions via coating clavate-shaped ZnO nanoparticles (ZF-silk fabrics) by dipping and pressing for cycles. The scanning electron microscope (SEM), fourier transform infrared (FTIR), ultraviolet visible spectrophotometry (UV-Vis), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to analyze the structure and properties of fabricated ZF-silk fabrics. Compared with raw silk fabric, the fabricated ZF-silk fabrics represented excellent UV shielding, good tensile strength, and superior antibacterial activity. Notably, the ZF-silk fabrics had good washing stability and aging resistance. In addition, the ZF-silk fabrics possessed superior antibacterial activity before and after aging treatment (under UV radiation for 72 h). Therefore, the durable and multifunctional ZF-silk fabrics indicate great potential for achieving to realize a long service life of the fabrics.