Abstract
Hospital acquired infections such as ventilator-associated pneumonia, urinary tract infections and surgical site infections, account for nearly 1.7 million infections and 99,000 associated deaths each year in America. In an effort to address these high infection rates, scientists are working to develop antimicrobial materials for use in hospitals. Magnetron Sputtering is a method of physical vapor deposition, which bombards a targeted material with superheated gas in order to eject particles from that material. Magnetic fields then guide those particles to create a thin film on a surface. Here, we describe the use of magnetron sputtering to create thin films of copper, silver, and zinc, which have antimicrobial properties and can be coated on textiles and plastics to form a barrier against microorganisms. We have used several methods to assess the antimicrobial effectiveness of these materials. Preliminary results from our experiments suggest that sputtered surfaces using combinations of transition metals can inhibit bacterial growth of Escherichia coli. Future work includes testing more metal combinations against other types of bacteria.
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