Delta SARS-CoV-2 inactivation and bactericidal performance of cotton wipes decorated with TiO2/Ag nanoparticles like Brazilian heavy-fruited Myrciaria cauliflora

Daniel J da Silva; Adriana Duran; Aline D Cabral; Fernando L A Fonseca; Rodrigo F Bueno; Shu Hui Wang; Derval S Rosa

doi:10.1016/j.mtcomm.2022.104288

Delta SARS-CoV-2 inactivation and bactericidal performance of cotton wipes decorated with TiO₂/Ag nanoparticles like Brazilian heavy-fruited Myrciaria cauliflora

Mater Today Commun. 2022 Dec:33:104288. doi: 10.1016/j.mtcomm.2022.104288. Epub 2022 Aug 22.

Authors

Daniel J da Silva^{1

2}, Adriana Duran¹, Aline D Cabral¹, Fernando L A Fonseca³, Rodrigo F Bueno⁴, Shu Hui Wang², Derval S Rosa¹

Affiliations

¹ Center for Engineering, Modeling, and Applied Social Sciences (CECS), Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Av. dos Estados 5001, Santo André, SP 09210-210, Brazil.
² Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo, Av. Prof. Mello Moraes 2643, São Paulo, SP, 05508-030, Brazil.
³ Faculty of Medicine of ABC (FMABC), Department of Clinical Analysis, Av. Lauro Gomes 2000, Santo André, SP 09060-870, Brazil.
⁴ Coordinator of the COVID-19 Monitoring Network in Wastewater National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and Ministry of Health, Brazil. Center for Engineering, Modeling, and Applied Social Sciences (CECS), Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Av. dos Estados 5001, Santo André, SP 09210-210, Brazil.

Abstract

The current pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) raised several concerns about using conventional textiles for manufacturing personal protective equipment without self-disinfecting properties since the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is transmitted mainly by aerosols that can transpose cotton masks. Therefore, developing new cotton fibers with high self-disinfecting ability is essential to avoid a new pandemic due to new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Herein, we developed cotton wipes (CFs) with fibers coated by Ag, TiO₂, and Ag/TiO₂ hybrid nanoparticles like Brazilian heavy-fruited Myrciaria cauliflora by a sonochemical approach. Moreover, the coated CFs present high antimicrobial performance against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), being able to inactivate infectious SARS-CoV-2 (Delta variant) by the destruction of the spike, membrane, and nucleocapsid proteins while the viral RNA is not significantly affected, according to the molecular biological findings.

Keywords: Antimicrobial; COVID-19; Cotton, Silver; SARS-CoV-2; TiO2.