According to Qian, the 120-times faster effectiveness rate was achieved without the assistance of any drug.
“Our copper structure has shown itself to be remarkably potent for such a common material,” he said.
Qian and his colleagues believe there could be a huge range of applications for the new material once further developed, including antimicrobial door handles and other touch surfaces in schools, hospitals, homes and public transport, as well as filters in antimicrobial respirators or air ventilation systems, and in face masks.
The team is also looking to investigate the enhanced copper’s effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2, including assessing 3D-printed samples.
In a paper published in the journal Biomaterials, the group explained that a special copper mould casting process was used to make an alloy, arranging copper and manganese atoms into specific formations. The manganese atoms were then removed from the alloy using a cheap and scalable chemical process called “dealloying”, leaving pure copper full of tiny microscale and nanoscale cavities on its surface.
“Our copper is composed of comb-like microscale cavities and within each tooth of that comb structure there are much smaller nanoscale cavities; it has a massive active surface area,” lead investigator Jackson Leigh Smith said.
Smith pointed out that the pattern also makes the surface super hydrophilic, or water-loving, so that water lies on it as a flat film rather than as droplets.
“The hydrophilic effect means...
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