Antimicrobial effectiveness
Steve Teasdale, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Advisor at InnuScience Group, asks whether antimicrobial coatings effective surface treatments?
As countries continue to battle with the coronavirus and the second wave rushes over us, the need to find solutions that are durable and provide effective disinfection continue to be a major talking point.
We have been looking at what antimicrobial coatings are available in the market to see if this type of surface treatment could be compatible with our
cleaning products, to track its growth in the market, to understand if it offers a sustainable approach and to see if it aligns with the concept of Justified Disinfection.
This concept argues that effective and thorough cleaning with high quality detergents across all non-critical touch surfaces is as effective – if not more so – than the widespread use of disinfectants.
The technology
Firstly, it should be noted that these technologies are not so new. These antimicrobial surface coatings are treatments applied to surfaces and claim to provide a lasting disinfectant effect. When we perform a routine disinfection procedure, at the moment of application, with the right procedures and the right contact time, we achieve a significant reduction of the microbial load on the surface.
Regardless of whether It’s a doorknob, a food cutting board, or disinfecting a counter, you will achieve an immediate
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microbial load reduction. This is effective at the moment of application but this is extremely temporary too, as the moment someone touches or reuses the surface the area will be contaminated again.
It typically takes anytime between two to six hours for this disinfected surface to go back to its original level of contamination, so it's very short term. With an antimicrobial protection or coating it is possible now to get a constant antimicrobial protection. In principle, surfaces that are coated with these treatments will be protected from any microbial contaminations for a long period of time, ranging from days to weeks to months.
Fifteen years ago, we explored such technologies in Canada. It was a typical antimicrobial coating, and we concluded that it wasn’t ready and was unproven. Permanent antimicrobial protection has been known for thousands of years and the ancient Greeks were using silver vessels to keep their water and other liquid fresh to prevent microbial contamination. They did not know what was happening at that time. They did not know microorganisms existed, but they knew that when liquid was kept at room temperature in a silver vessel it remained fresh for weeks. This was because of the permanent antimicrobial properties of silver.
That said, in the last six months during the pandemic, antimicrobial coatings are being promoted again and gaining market interest – no doubt helped by the increased understanding of microbial activity, disinfectants and our own concerns about health and hygiene.
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