Nanoparticle/biopolymer-based coatings for functionalization of textiles: recent developments (a minireview)

This minireview presents recent developments in surface nano-structured textiles and their biomedical applications by up-to-date achievements, summarizing the coatings made of biopolymer films and nanoparticles on different textile substrates for enhanced medical applications, diminishing the incidence of the multiple range of hospital-acquired infections in the past 10 years. The combination of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles with biopolymers is an efficient technique to generate enhanced antibacterial, virucidal and antifungal properties to textiles. Only a few review articles offer a comprehensive insight into the surface tailoring of textiles by nanoparticles–biopolymers use as an alternative for surface modification of textiles, granting them biocidal performance. The overview points out the compelling reasons for scientists and experts to enhance the already existing results in the biomedical textiles domain, with an emphasis on antimicrobial responsivity, highlighting: (a) the benefit of the simultaneous nanoparticles–biopolymers deposition on textiles by various deposition techniques, meaning the wash fastness of the antibacterial attributes and the biocompatibility of the material in comparison with only nanoparticle coating; (b) the use of biopolymers to stabilize colloidal dispersions of nanoparticles, granting the nanoparticles functionalities for covalent immobilization on textiles with long-lasting antibacterial effect; (c) the most usual metal and metal oxide nanoparticles and biopolymers for antibacterial textile applications.