an seanduine wrote:
Perhaps a tiny amount of silver. . .
This pebble wouldn't get out of my shoe, so I wanted to know what sort of performance hierarchy there might be among antibiotic metals. Found this:
https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/han ... sAllowed=yDefinitely NOT light reading. But for layfolk (that includes me) the basic message is get-to-able, which is that evidently, copper is king. The study tests a range of metals for performance at inhibiting planktonic growth and biofilm in three different subjects - naturally
E. coli was part of the selection - and copper's the generalist of the bunch. All the other metals - silver, titanium, gallium, nickel, aluminum and zinc - whatever their efficacy, behave selectively and often unequally. Only copper seems to do it all every time, and if it doesn't, it's close enough. And I was a bit surprised, because I had bet that nickel would easily be copper's equal as an agent of implacable bug-doom. Nope. With anything other than copper, you have to mix and match according to your target - sorta like grains with legumes if you want the complete protein ride. So, yeah - copper. Nice and simple.
Apparently all copper alloys - brass, bronze, etc. - display the same antimicrobial qualities of pure copper. As to strength, I didn't get that far. And I confess I'm surprised that copper-plated touch surfaces aren't faster becoming the norm in medical facilities. Sure, cost, but line-of-fire's something to invest in.