Testing antimicrobial coatings

Common immunochemical assay formats to select from include the 96-well microtiter plates, dipsticks, coated test tubes, and membrane-based flow through devices. If the end-user is a trained technician working in a well-equipped laboratory and needs to detect and tentatively identify, for example, antimicrobial residues in hundreds of meat samples per day, a multiwell or other high-through-put format should be chosen. If, on the other hand, the end user is a quality control inspector at a milk factory who has limited time to find out whether the penicillin residues in the milk waiting to be unloaded exceed a certain level, the same reagents used in the first instance may require a more user-friendly format such as dipstick or membrane-based flow through device. 

There is a recognised need for antimicrobial additives in plastics and all types of surface coatings to maintain then-integrity and appearance. The current available laboratory test methods do not always provide a good indication of performance and some could be open to misinterpretation. In addition, the use of additives for claims of antibacterial... 

MIC values confirmed the noticeable antibacterial activity of the fabricated polymer by the response of Enterococcus faecalis. Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus. The antimicrobial properties of pure nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) coated with Ppy-silver composite (Scheme 7.4) films were tested on yeast Candida albicans), a Gram-negative bacterium Salmonella serovar Infantis) and a Gram-positive bacteria Listeria monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus) (Table 7.3) [60]. 

This study shows that the activity of an antimicrobial treated ftibric varies depending on the test conditions used. This could be helpftd in determining the aid use of a trotted fabric. Treated ftibrics examined in this study containing triclosan, QACs or silva as an after-treatment proved to be active in moist conditions. Fabric containing inheioit silver or silver coated thread required soaking wet conditions. This is fine if the treated bric is to be used in an environment which is wet such as wound diesangs, where silver is currently the antibacterial of choice, as the presence of wound fluids or other secretions ionise the silver to its active form d. 

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