Emergence of infective diseases caused by pathogens around the globe in the past few decades have caused immense financial loss and threatened well-being of humankind. Pathogens often are able to survive on surfaces of various materials such as medical devices, health care products, and hospital and dental office equipment for 90 days or more which can lead to cross-contamination and microbial infections. Furthermore, bacteria can form biofilms, which are more resilient than simple colonies to antimicrobial agents, and become persistent. Herein, we report a study that examines antibacterial efficacy of a ready-to-use spray solution containing a pre-chlorinated N-halamine copolymer for surface coatings in an in vitro environment against E. coli and S. aureus bacteria as well as the coating’s stability at different intervals. Moreover, durability of the coatings against moisture and prolonged exposure to heat is evaluated. Our main target surfaces include but are not limited to metallic equipment and devices used in biomedical industry such as titanium and stainless steel. Typically, N-halamines are not used or applied in pre-chlorinated form for surface coatings. This makes the coating procedure to consist of two steps: 1) applying the coating and 2) subsequent halogenation. In contrast, this study is aiming at the development of a pre-chlorinated copolymer which eliminates the second coating step, i.e. halogenation. It is found that: (i) The N-halamine copolymer in its dry form has prolonged shelf-life stability after at least 6 months of storage; (ii) The N-halamine copolymer solution exhibits outstanding shelf-life stability after at least 4 months of storage; (iii) Coatings are shown to be stable after at least 3 months of storing in laboratory conditions; (iv) Coatings are found to be stable after being challenged by exposure to moisture and heat; (v) Coatings are able to inactive 100% of both E. coli and S. aureus bacteria within 1 minute of contact time regardless of the aging time of the copolymer powder, solution, and coating or being challenged by elevated temperatures or exposure to moisture. The collected data shows that this N-halamine has excellent potential for use in a variety of disinfection and biofilm control applications which can satisfy durability, stability, and antibacterial function.

Synthesis of a novel N-halamine copolymer with outstanding dry and solution stability and antibacterial efficacy as surface coating

ACS Fall 2021

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