N-Halamine Polypropylene Nonwoven Fabrics with Rechargeable Antibacterial and Antiviral Functions for Medical Applications

Embedding medical and hygiene products with regenerable antimicrobial functions would have significant implications for limiting pathogen contaminations and reducing healthcare-associated infections. Herein, we demonstrate a scalable and industrially feasible methodology to fabricate chlorine rechargeable melt-blown polypropylene (PP) nonwoven fabrics, which have been widely used in hygienic and personal protective products, via a combination of a melt reactive extrusion process and melt-blown technique. Methacrylamide (MAM) was employed as a precursor of halamine monomers and covalently grafted onto the PP backbone to form polypropylene-grafted methacrylamide (PP-g-MAM), which could be chlorinated, yielding biocidal acyclic halamines. Subsequently, the resultant PP-g-MAM was manufactured into nonwoven fabrics with varying fiber diameters by adjusting the hot air flowing speed during the melt-blowing process. The chlorinated nonwoven fabrics (PP-g-MAM-Cl) exhibited integrated properties such as a robust mechanical property, good thermal stability, high chlorination capability (>850 ppm), and desirable chlorine rechargeability. More importantly, such chlorinated nonwoven fabrics showed a promising antibacterial and antiviral efficiency, achieving 6 log CFU reduction of bacteria (both Escherichia coli O157: H7 and Listeria innocua) and 7 log PFU reductions of a virus (T7 bacteriophages) within 15 and 5 min of contact, respectively, revealing great potential to serve as a reusable antimicrobial material for medical protection applications.