FRET as a novel strategy to enhance the singlet oxygen generation of porphyrinic MOF decorated self-disinfecting fabrics

Abstract Self-disinfecting textiles with high efficient antimicrobial function play a vital role in the prevention of pathogen transmissions, such as bacteria in hospitals and medical institutions. However, low reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation of current photodynamic materials cannot meet the efficiency of microbial inactivation. Herein, to increase the singlet oxygen (1O2) generation, we constructed a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) pair with GQDs as the donor and PCN-224 as the acceptor. The GQDs and PCN-224 were immobilized onto the cotton fiber surface by chemical coupling and in-situ growth, respectively. A series of properties including the promotion effect of 1O2 and the photodynamic antibacterial effect of the self-disinfecting fabrics against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria were studied, the results showed that 1O2 generation was increased by 1.61-fold via FRET process. The fabrics showed high bactericidal efficiency (99.9999+% against four kinds of bacterial strains in 30 min) and low cytotoxicity. The construction of self-disinfecting textiles based on the photodynamic and FRET strategy proposed in this work is of constructive significance for expanding and promoting the applications of textile materials in medical fields.