Design of Photodynamic Antibacterial Cotton/Camel Hair Textiles via Rose Bengal Functionalization

Natural camel hair suffers from monotonous inherent color, susceptibility to mildew and moth erosion, limiting product variety, additional value and wide industrial utilization. To overcome these drawbacks, high-whiteness camel hair was first decolorized and functionalized with photosensitizer Rose Bengal (RB) following antibacterial photodynamic inactivation (aPDI) theory, acquiring prominent visible-light-triggered antibacterial performance. Target RB-modified camel hair was further blended into staple yarns to combine abundant color customization and photodynamic antibacterial capacity. RB anchors onto camel fiber via ionic bonds and hydrogen bonds at 3% owf loading, achieving 99.99% inactivation of Staphylococcus aureus and 99.65% of Escherichia coli within 30 min under visible illumination. Mechanical testing reveals the 70:30 camel hair/RB-camel hair and 70:30 cotton/RB-camel hair blended yarns reach maximum tensile strengths of 4.02 MPa and 5.82 MPa separately. By contrast, 30:70 blending ratios for both two yarn systems produce the highest singlet oxygen output, realizing respective antibacterial efficiencies of 97.77% & 92.33% against E. coli, and 99.99% & 99.98% against S. aureus. This work provides a feasible route for high-value diversified development of camel hair textiles.