ISO 20743:2021

This document specifies quantitative test methods to determine the antibacterial activity of all antibacterial textile products including nonwovens.

This document is applicable to all textile products, including cloth, wadding, thread and material for clothing, bedclothes, home furnishings and miscellaneous goods, regardless of the type of antibacterial agent used (organic, inorganic, natural or man-made) or the method of application (built-in, after-treatment or grafting).

This document covers three inoculation methods for the determination of antibacterial activity:

a) absorption method (an evaluation method in which the test bacterial suspension is inoculated directly onto specimens);

b) transfer method (an evaluation method in which test bacteria are placed on an agar plate and transferred onto specimens);

c) printing method (an evaluation method in which test bacteria are placed on a filter and printed onto specimens).

NOTE Based on the intended application and on the environment in which the textile product is to be used, and also on the surface properties of the textile properties, the user can select the most suitable inoculation method.

This document also specifies the colony plate count method and the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) luminescence method for measuring the enumeration of bacteria.