ISO 20743:2013 specifies quantitative test methods to determine the antibacterial activity of all antibacterial textile products including nonwovens.

ISO 20743:2013 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).

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 of the following three inoculation methods on 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).

The colony plate count method and the ATP (ATP = Adenosine Tri-phosphate) luminescence method are also specified for measuring the enumeration of bacteria.