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

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, TiO, and Ag/TiO hybrid nanoparticles like Brazilian heavy-fruited by a sonochemical approach. Moreover, the coated CFs present high antimicrobial performance against () and (), 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.