Effect of Biological Contamination of Copper Surfaces with Extreme Wettability on Their Antibacterial Properties

Abstract

Bacterial health care-associated infections (HCAI) are one of the acute problems of modern healthcare. One of the promising directions for solving this problem is the development of materials that either have a bactericidal effect against HCAI pathogens or prevent the transmission of bacteria deposited on their surface by patients and staff contacts with such surfaces. In this work, the antibacterial effectiveness of copper contact surfaces with different wettability was investigated. Particular attention was paid to studying the effect on this efficacy of surface contamination by both human contact sweat and bacterial life-supporting substances, using a peptone solution as an example. Due to the high cost of copper, the possibility of replacing bulk copper material with less expensive sprayed copper-coated materials was also investigated. The test results showed that the bactericidal efficacy against Staphylococcus aureus strain of both control copper and superhydrophilic copper samples, as well as of sputtered copper films, is close to 100% and almost unchanged after contamination with peptone solution or sweat excretions. Superhydrophobic copper surfaces have less bactericidal efficacy, but due to the non-wettability effect and low cell adhesion to such surfaces, they remain uncontaminated longer and thus also promote reducing the transmission of infections through the touch surfaces made of them.