Copper treated clothes: Resist bacteria

Low tech way to make copper dye. Treated clothes are resistant to bacteria and mold.
I have shirts that can be worn two days and have no odor.
Handy for those long bus or train trips.

Getting started:

On my budget everything has to be cheap or free.
The copper wire were the windings from a defective florescent lamp ballast.

Use a glass or plastic container. Trust me you won't like the results with stainless steel or metallic. Exception of course you could use a copper pan but then the vinegar would eat away your expensive cookware!

Cover the copper with about a quart of vinegar. The process can be rushed along by injecting air into the vinegar with a small aquarium air pump.

Leave this to sit until the liquid is saturated.
We're making copper sulfate, this is your dye.

Best materials to accept this dye are rayon,polyester, or a mix of those fabrics.
I've had best results with a forty to sixty percent cotton and the rest synthetic.

What you want is molecular bonding of copper to the material being dyed.
This does not work well with one hundred percent cotton,linen or silk.

Wet the material to be dyed with a fifty percent water/vinegar solution. This step makes the material more susceptible to the dye.

Use the vinegar that was saturated with copper sulfate and cover the material.
Careful that the fabric is completely and evenly covered.

Hang to dry, wash out the excess dye and dry again.

Note: Vinegar is about five percent acetic acid. This does have an oxidizing (bleaching) effect. Don't over do it with vinegar when you wet the material.

Try an old shirt first till you get the hang of it.

The color of the dye is aqua green. It will cause a slight change in color of the material.

Best to use green or blue material to be dyed.

If the liquid is allowed to evaporate you are left with copper sulfate. This is easily stored and can be added to a water/vinegar solution again making dye.

I have to buy another shirt and will update this post showing the process in more detail.

For most people you have enough information to do this on your own.