Antibacterial Swedish Textile Hemp for Reduction of Infections in Health Care

Important results from the project

A primary step in this project was to confirm antibacterial activity of the hemp textiles. Experiments performed by RISE could not verify any antibacterial activity. It could be explained that some of the studies were not correctly performed, or there is an indigenous complexity resulting in activity only under certain circumstances. RISE has the opinion that in order to claim an antibacterial activity in hemp textiles, the prerequisites of the biocide regulation, (EU) 528/2012, must be fulfilled. The market for antibacterial textiles in health care is estimated to be very good..

Expected long term effects

Since as antibacterial activity cannot unambiguously be confirmed, the project is a failure in terms of experimental outcome. However, this does not exclude that hemp textiles can be used in healthcare to reduce contagion. More experiments are required, and these must be well-designed. Independent of future results, we have shown that there is a large interest in antibacterial textiles, especially in health care, it is likely that acquired knowledge regarding legislation and market potential might be relevant in other respects.

Approach and implementation

In order to validate the antibacterial activities, hemp textiles were supplied by Healthtextiles and ordinary scrubs from the Uppsala Academic hospital. All laboratory analyses were performed at the RISE microbiological laboratory in Gothenburg. A comprehensive literature survey and interpretation of the legislation was primarily performed by RISE. Healthtextiles has surveyed the production related features, and in close cooperation with Business Sweden the market potential for scrubs with antibacterial properties.