The Development of Extreme Wettability Coatings to Combat the Spread of Bacterial Infections and their Testing in Hospital Conditions

The use of materials with extreme wettability [1,2] may become one of the most promising strategies to combat the spreading of bacterial infections through touch surfaces not only in medical facilities but also in public areas, including educational institutions, supermarkets, and fitness centers. The extreme-wettability coatings have both a nonspecific bactericidal effect against various types of bacteria and several more specific mechanisms that work against certain strains depending on the type of metal. At the same time, such coatings are effective against various ways of spreading the bacterial cells, be it through the deposition of an aerosol created when patients cough or sneeze or through contact transfer via patients’ hands. In this work, we will briefly summarize the existing strategies for producing materials with extreme wettability by aqueous media and overview their main characteristics. Then, the mechanisms behind the antibacterial effect of these materials will be discussed in detail, along with an analysis of some examples of testing the antibacterial efficacy of extreme-wettability surfaces in hospital settings. We will also discuss the prospects for the wider use of such antibacterial materials not only in medical institutions, but also in shopping centers, educational institutions, in transport, and other places characterized by increased risks of infection-related contact transmission. This will minimize human losses during the spread of future bacterial pandemics. In particular, a 22-week study [2] of extreme-wettability copper-coated high-touch surfaces in a hospital environment showed that the frequency of contamination with various microorganisms was 2.7 times lower than that of control surfaces.

References

1. Emelyanenko, A.M.; Makvandi, P.; Moradialvand, M.; Boinovich, L.B. Surface Innovations, 2024, 12, 360–379.
2. Emelyanenko, A.M.; Omran, F.S.; Teplonogova, M.A. et al. Int. J. Mol. Sci., 2024, 25, 4471.

The research was financially supported by the Russian Science Foundation Grant #23-73-30004, https://rscf.ru/en/project/23-73-30004/.