Jerusalem based Argaman Technologies has invented a unique germ vanquishing textiles, manufactured inside its custom-built factory. Carrefour Group, a French-based superstore chain with 12,000 retail stores in 30 countries, is testing Argaman’s CottonX — billed as the world’s first bio-inhibitive 100 percent cotton – in a line of uniforms dubbed “The Uniform that Cares.”

Large companies such as Carrefour, Victoria’s Secret and a Far East luxury hotel chain are looking at unique germ-vanquishing textiles.

Textile engineer Jeff Gabbay, founder and CEO of Argaman and inventor of CottonX, explained that 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.

CopperX is being developed into reusable, comfortable face masks for the Greater China market, where airborne pollution is a major problem, said Edwin Keh, head of the Hong Kong Research Institute for Textiles and Apparel.

This government-run, nonprofit applied research and commercialization center was introduced to Argaman last year as the result of the industrial R&D memorandum of understanding signed by Israel and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China Hong in February 2014.

One of the largest garment manufacturers in the world, also based in Hong Kong, became a strategic investor in Argaman.

Keh hopes to pursue collaborations with additional Israeli companies offering advanced technologies for the textile industry, especially in water management, spinning, dyeing, weaving and cotton agriculture.

They want to make a success story out of their collaboration with Argaman and they hope it will be the first of many.

Keh is also interested in some other properties of CottonX aside from germ control. Embedding varying concentrations of copper dioxide also makes the fabric fire-resistant, electricity conductive (potentially useful for medical monitoring and military markets) and capable of banishing facial wrinkles and even cellulite.

Argaman also is in discussions with a global fashion firm to create a new “lifestyle” brand of products.

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.