CottonX is the first-ever bio-inhibitive 100% cotton. Photo courtesy of Argaman Technologies

Jerusalem-based Argaman Technologies has introduced an innovative bio-inhibitive cotton that can be used on products ranging from face masks to hotel linens.

CottonX, as the new technology is called, was invented by textile engineer Jeff Gabbay, founder and CEO of Argaman. The new textile is made in the Argaman factory in Jerusalem where enhanced copper-oxide particles are ultrasonically and permanently blasted into cotton fibers using an environmentally friendly technique.

Ninety-nine percent of bacteria and viruses are killed within seconds of coming into contact with copper oxide, and bacteria cannot become resistant to copper oxide as they do to antibiotics, Gabbay explains.

Hospital-acquired infections cost U.S. hospitals about $25 billion annually. A trial by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has recently been completed, checking the effectiveness CottonX sheets, pillowcases, and pajamas to reduce hospital-acquired infections. Results will be published soon.

For the commercial textile industry, CottonX is especially intriguing because of some of the other properties of CottonX aside from germ control. Embedding varying concentrations of copper dioxide also makes the fabric fire-resistant.

Argaman is a member of a new five-year consortium established in the Israel Innovation Authority’s MAGNET program, which aims to unite technology and industrial companies with academic research institutes to develop technologies for producing “smart” fabrics.

“Not only are we built to take the concepts from academia — plus a lot of our own ideas — to the level that industry needs but we also have the ability in-house to supply all industrial members the understanding of the science, samples and industrial quantities of the new materials should the concepts go commercial,” Gabbay says.

This story was originially reported by ISRAEL21c.