Nanotransfer Printing of Functional Nanomaterials on Electrospun Fibers for Wearable Healthcare Applications

With the advancement of functional textile technology, there is a growing demand for functional enhancements in textiles from both industrial and societal perspectives. Recently, nanopattern transfer technology has emerged as a potential approach for fabricating functional textiles. However, conventional transfer methods have some limitations such as transfer difficulties on curved fiber surfaces, polymer residues, and delamination of transferred nanopatterns. In this study, an advanced nanopattern transfer method based on surface modification and thermoforming principles is applied to microscale electrospun fibers. This transfer method utilizes covalent bonding and mechanical interlocking between nanopatterns and the fibers without requiring extra adhesives. Various nanopatterns transferred electrospun fibers possess significant potential for diverse wearable healthcare applications. This work introduces two specific application scenarios in the field of wearable healthcare, both of which leverage the light: diagnostics and antimicrobials. Versatile textile with silver nanogap-pattern detects glucose in sweat, diagnosing hypoglycemia and diabetes by shifting Raman peaks from 1071.0 to 1075.4 cm-1 for 0 to 150 mu m glucose. Additionally, a bactericidal mask using visible light to induce the photocatalytic degradation effect of titanium dioxide and silver nanopatterns is developed. Bactericidal efficacy against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus is 99.9% due to photolysis from visible light irradiation. This manuscript presents an innovative nanotransfer printing technique for the functionalization of electrospun textiles. By employing oxygen plasma treatment and a heat pressing, various nanopatterns can be effectively transferred onto electrospun fibers. This study anticipates that such versatile functional textiles will facilitate the diagnosis of glucose levels through the surface-enhanced Raman scattering method and inhibit bacterial growth through photodegradation. image