A Safer Bet

Hygiene is one important criteria that is given utmost importance in the filed of healthcare. One vital aspect of this is hygiene coating. Now, what exactly are
hygiene coatings?

Coatings having properties like no bacteria/fungus formation on coated surface, having stain/water/dust/oleo repellency i.e. less cleaning/maintenance, has no dampness on surface, is crack resistant, does not use toxic materials, has EMI resistance, sound insulating and many such features are termed as hygiene coatings.

Typical areas where hygiene maintenance is necessary are building interior walls, building exterior walls, floor/wall tiles (stone/ceramic), sanitary ware surfaces, wooden doors and windows, door handles and accessories, switch boards, water taps, glass panels and metal surfaces. The major users of hygiene coatings are hospitals, healthcare centers, sterile laboratories, electronic industries, pharma, drug and biotech industries and clean room applications.

The antibacterial property of silver has been known for thousands of years with the ancient Greeks cooking in silver pots and the old adage ‘born with a silver spoon in his mouth’ referring to more than just wealth. Eating with a silver spoon was known to be more hygienic. Manufacturing entire objects from pure silver metal or coating them with silver is prohibitively expensive for consumer items, but research has found that impregnating other materials with silver nano-particles is a practical way to exploit the germ fighting properties of silver.

The extremely small size of nano-particles means they exhibit enhanced or different properties when compared with the bulk material. The extremely small size of nano-particles results in the particles having a large surface area relative to their volume. In the case of silver nano-particles, this allows them to easily interact with other particles and increases their antibacterial efficiency. This effect can be so great that one gram of silver nano-particles is all that is required to give antibacterial properties to hundred of square metres of substrate material. In order to understand how silver nano-particles kill pathogens, an understanding of how bacteria, viruses and fungus live and grow is required.

Antibiotic drugs can be used to kill the pathogens attacked by silver nano-particles, but bacteria and viruses are becoming increasingly resistant to drug therapies. Silver nano-particles kill all types of fungal infections, bacteria and viruses, including antibiotic resistant strains. No drug-based antibiotic is effective on all types of bacteria. Additionally, research to date has shown that bacteria have been unable to develop any immunity to silver.

Nano-silver, that is silver that has been reduced to particles measured in billionths of a meter acts as used