By: Seshadri Ramkumar, Professor, Texas Tech university, USAAir borne viruses can be inactivated relatively easily from porous surfaces like nonwovens.
Hard surfaces like metal sheets and plastic plates tend to retain viruses over a longer period compared to porous materials like tissues, paper, and nonwovens. Containing airborne disease and epidemics due to microbial transmission is a priority endeavor for the healthcare and allied non-medical sectors. The need for multiple aspects of protection against viruses is emerging due to growing incidents of viral infections like the recent measles upsurge in West Texas.
The Nonwoven and Advanced Materials Laboratory at Texas Tech University focuses its research efforts on filters and PPEs against microbes and environmental safety products such as 100% cotton oil absorbent nonwovens. The overall goal of the laboratory is to find new applications for cotton such as medical textiles and the ongoing work is supported by U.S. cotton growers through Cotton Incorporated and Texas State Support Program.
As part of a major research project, a review of earlier research on virus persistence has shown that porous textile materials can be effective barriers and decontamination materials. The work has recently appeared as a review article in peer-reviewed Future Virology journal.
Details of structure and persistence of viruses on fomites and other matrices are provided in the article, which may be of interest to the textile community so that new antiviral products can be developed.
Graduate students Bunmi Olopade, Md Faizur Rahman, and Mirza Khyum contributed to the article.
The link to the article is provided at: