Spanish researchers have turned ordinary cotton into a visible-light-activated self-disinfecting textile, opening a potential new route to antimicrobial hospital bedding, uniforms and high-touch fabrics.
Researchers led by Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) have developed a cotton fabric that uses ordinary visible light to generate antimicrobial activity, reducing microbial accumulation by 75% compared with untreated cotton during a pilot trial at La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital in Valencia. The peer-reviewed research was published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
Light generates the disinfectant
The finishing system immobilises two photosensitising dyes—methylene blue and Rose Bengal—onto cotton using chitosan interlayers and cyanoguanidine fixation.
When illuminated, the dyes generate highly reactive oxygen species, particularly singlet oxygen, which damage microorganisms attached to the fabric. Because the antimicrobial agent is generated photochemically rather than continuously released from the textile, the approach could reduce some durability and resistance concerns associated with conventional antimicrobial chemistries.
Laboratory tests achieved complete inactivation of E. coli within 60 minutes and Enterococcus faecalis within 20 minutes. The fabric produced roughly a six-log reduction in Candida albicans after three hours and a similar reduction in recombinant adenovirus within 60 minutes.
Hospital trial confirms light dependency
Researchers placed treated and untreated cotton in rooms occupied by 12 hospital patients for 48 hours. Material positioned on illuminated bed rails accumulated 75% fewer microorganisms, while fabric in lower-light mattress areas achieved only a 25% reduction. Gram-positive bacteria fell 77.5%.
The treatment also retained bactericidal performance above antimicrobial-textile reference levels after 20 washing cycles.
Technical-textile opportunity
Researchers say the process can potentially be incorporated into conventional textile-finishing operations, making eventual scale-up feasible.
For textile manufacturers, the opportunity extends beyond hospital sheets to privacy curtains, uniforms, patient gowns and other high-contact healthcare textiles. Commercialisation, however, will require industrial trials establishing finishing cost, colour flexibility, wash durability beyond 20 cycles, toxicological safety and performance under different indoor-light intensities.
The key innovation is therefore not simply an antimicrobial finish, but a fabric that uses the hospital’s ambient light as the active disinfection mechanism.
