A novel air-assisted rotor spinning technique for ultra-stable antibacterial nanofiber/cotton hybrid yarn

Antibacterial textiles have attracted much attention in recent years. The stability of the antibacterial effect is one of the most important properties of antibacterial textiles. Integrating antibacterial nanofibers into cotton yarn is a green and efficient method to produce antibacterial textiles. However, due to the loose yarn structure of traditional rotor spinning, the functional nanofibers are easily detached from the blended yarns, resulting in reduced antibacterial effect. Herein, we modified the rotor spinning unit by adding an extra air supply channel for tighter yarn structure. The airflow field of the modified rotor spinning unit was simulated using computational fluid dynamics to determine the best setting angle of the extra air supply channel. Then, the antibacterial blended yarn was produced by trans-scale electrospinning and followed by air-assisted rotor spinning. At the same yarn density, the mean diameter of modified rotor spinning hybrid yarn was smaller than that of conventional rotor spinning hybrid yarn, demonstrating that the structure of modified rotor spinning hybrid yarn was tighter. The overall qualities of modified rotor spinning hybrid yarn were much better than those of conventional rotor spinning hybrid yarn. The fluorescent tracer technique was carried out to show that more nanofibers can be preserved in modified rotor spinning hybrid yarn than in conventional rotor spinning hybrid yarn, especially after 10 washing cycles. The antibacterial properties of modified rotor spinning hybrid yarn-based fabric against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus can reach as high as 80.5% and 82% even after 50 times of washing, indicating the high antibacterial durability. Our new technology provides a method to prepare super stable antibacterial functional yarn, and is expected to be used to prepare other durable functional textiles.