A new antimicrobial coating could help fight bacteria and fungal infections on the ISS - by AndyTomaswick
One obvious answer to this problem is to clean. But let’s be honest – astronauts have much better things to do with their time. And, admittedly, they have a team of very brainy scientists who are being paid to develop a system for them never to have to clean again.
That system is supported by the “Optimization of Photo-catalytic Antibacterial coatings” or PATINA project and is funded by ESA’s Open Space Innovation Forum. Other research paths in the project include superhydrophobic materials, though they have a different use case than the antimicrobial ones developed by IIT and ESA engineers.
Those antimicrobial coatings are based around titanium dioxide – a material that, when exposed to light, will break water vapor into “free oxygen radicals” that destroy any living thing touching its surface, including bacteria and fungi. Titanium dioxide also has advantages over the more traditional antimicrobial material – silver.Silver has been used for its antimicrobial properties for centuries – it’s why we have silverware.
Titanium dioxide doesn’t have any of those adverse side effects, at least so far known to science. The researchers developing this coating are actively trying to artificially age the coatings and damage them in as many ways as possible to ensure they aren’t harmful. As Fabio Di Fonzo, one of the researchers from IIT, says, “Obviously, we don’t want end products more toxic than the microbes themselves.
So far, they haven’t found any hazardous side effects, and the team has successfully coated several different types of surfaces, including clean-room grade paper and aluminum foil, which is in abundant use on the ISS. They have also done so with layers as small as 50 to 100 nanometers in an attempt to maintain the mechanical properties of whatever surfaces they are coated on.