Green and Potent: A Waste-Free and Skin-Compatible CuI Coating on Flexible Substrates with Rapid Antiviral and Antimicrobial Kinetics

Infectious pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2, can remain viable on common fabrics for days, which poses a significant risk of fomite transmission in the community. We herein report a green method to fabricate copper iodide (CuI) coating on flexible cotton fabrics, attaining highly potent antiviral and antimicrobial efficacy with rapid biocidal kinetics. Only water was used as the processing solvent for the in situ formation of CuI microparticles on the coating substrate, and the unconsumed reagents can be fully recovered and recycled, making it a sustainable, economically viable, and waste-free technology promising for industrial scale-up. More remarkably, in just 2 minutes, the coating is able to inactivate over 99.9% and 99.9999% of murine hepatitis coronavirus and bacteriophage P22 as models for the enveloped and non-enveloped viral species, respectively. It is also capable of eradicating various bacteria and fungus with 3.5 – 7.4 log reductions within 2 – 5 minutes. The coating’s robust durability and skin compatibility were also experimentally demonstrated, imparting a great potential to this simple yet powerful coating approach for real-world applications, especially in future infectious disease outbreaks like Covid-19.