Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MIRIA (DEVELOPMENT OF ANTIMICROBIAL, ANTIVIRAL, AND ANTIFUNGAL NANOCOATINGSFOR EVERYDAY SURFACES)
Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2023-11-30
The MIRIA Project is a part of the initiatives undertaken around the world, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, aimed at creating a safer environment, i.e. an environment in which the spread of pathogens is hindered as much as possible. In this framework, the MIRIA project will contribute by providing a means to contrast cross contamination, i.e. the possibility that viruses, bacteria or fungi can pass from one individual to another one through contact with everyday objects, such as door handles, public transport handrails, etc.
The means used to achieve the goal is the development of coatings and treatments that make the surfaces of the treated objects hostile to the proliferation of viruses, bacteria, and fungi. The challenges to be faced are many: the solutions developed will have to be able to act against a wide spectrum of pathogens; they will have to maintain their effectiveness even outside the research laboratories, when they are applied to large and complex components; their effectiveness needs to be targeted against pathogens only and must be harmless to people and environment; finally, they have to be economically viable.
The case study considered in MIRIA project is the hospital operation room. This choice was made for two reasons. Firstly, it is one of the most challenging environments possible, where cross contamination is on the one hand extremely likely and on the other hand can have serious consequences; therefore, a solution complying to the specifications required by a hospital can be transferred to other less critical applications, such as the aforementioned public transport handrails. Secondly, the operating room is a complex environment that contains components of several types, shapes, sizes, and materials, thus allowing the research group to work on a wide range of problems, eliminating the risk of developing solutions that may be suitable only for very specific applications.
In addition to the purely technical activity, the MIRIA project will place particular emphasis on the communication of its results. In fact, one of the non-secondary aspects of the recent epidemic has been the fear of contagion and the consequent sense of insecurity that many people feel in crowded places; the project wants to help reduce this anxiety by showing that it is possible to prevent – through MIRIA solutions – one of the possible sources of contagion.
The means used to achieve the goal is the development of coatings and treatments that make the surfaces of the treated objects hostile to the proliferation of viruses, bacteria, and fungi. The challenges to be faced are many: the solutions developed will have to be able to act against a wide spectrum of pathogens; they will have to maintain their effectiveness even outside the research laboratories, when they are applied to large and complex components; their effectiveness needs to be targeted against pathogens only and must be harmless to people and environment; finally, they have to be economically viable.
The case study considered in MIRIA project is the hospital operation room. This choice was made for two reasons. Firstly, it is one of the most challenging environments possible, where cross contamination is on the one hand extremely likely and on the other hand can have serious consequences; therefore, a solution complying to the specifications required by a hospital can be transferred to other less critical applications, such as the aforementioned public transport handrails. Secondly, the operating room is a complex environment that contains components of several types, shapes, sizes, and materials, thus allowing the research group to work on a wide range of problems, eliminating the risk of developing solutions that may be suitable only for very specific applications.
In addition to the purely technical activity, the MIRIA project will place particular emphasis on the communication of its results. In fact, one of the non-secondary aspects of the recent epidemic has been the fear of contagion and the consequent sense of insecurity that many people feel in crowded places; the project wants to help reduce this anxiety by showing that it is possible to prevent – through MIRIA solutions – one of the possible sources of contagion.
The activities of MIRIA project are focused on the development of antimicrobial coatings. Many of the MIRIA project partners had previous experience in this topic, mainly at laboratory level but in some cases also at industrial level. These experiences were the starting point for the planning of technical activities. The MIRIA project aims to integrate the expertise of different laboratories to achieve results superior to those that each laboratory was pursuing on its own. The temporal flow of activities starts from the design of innovative solutions, coming from the contribution of different experiences. These solutions are consolidated at the laboratory level and then applied to industrial-scale components, solving all the problems linked on large dimensions, complex shapes, large-scale reproducibility. The last activity, which constitutes the crowning achievement of the project, will be the setting up of a simulated operating room where the solutions developed during the project will be applied on the components: door handles, operating table, touch screens, bedlinen…
In detail, the MIRIA project will develop coatings, deposited with various techniques, which can incorporate nanopowders containing a biocide agent. Various candidate solutions were identified at the beginning of the project, to increase the probability of success. Moreover, the surfaces to be treated are quite different from each other: e.g. coatings that work very well on glass substrates may not be as effective with metal components, and vice versa. Most likely, there will not be a universal solution that can be applied to every type of surface; it is a safer approach to have several candidate coatings to cover as many components as possible.
At the 18-month checkpoint, the project is on schedule. The partners in charge of the production of the nanopowders have already produced the first batches and sent them to the partners who develop the coatings. Numerous laboratory scale coated samples are already available for testing. Functional characterizations showed that some solutions achieved the antimicrobial efficacy targets set for hospital environments (which represent the target of the project); other solutions have not reached the targets but are promising; others did not work. Based on these preliminary results, a second campaign will be planned: the best solutions will be consolidated, the promising ones will be optimized, the ineffective ones will be abandoned to focus on the others.
The functional characterizations are carried out by a team of partners different from those who develop nanopowders and coatings. In this way, all coatings, regardless of the laboratory where they were deposited, will be characterized in the exact same way, allowing comparison between the results. These functional characterizations are: the measurement of antimicrobial efficacy; toxicological tests, to verify that the coatings are harmless to human beings and environment; durability tests, to estimate the service life of the coatings in terms of antimicrobial efficacy.
A further activity started in these first months concerns the detailed design of the simulated operating room and the definition of the tests to be carried out within it.
The described technical effort has been accompanied by exploitation, communication and dissemination activities. The latter, which as mentioned are important for the MIRIA project, in the first 18 months of the project were limited to posts on social media and communications at specialized conferences. In the coming months, as relevant technical results are available, this activity will be expanded to the organization of dedicated workshops and newsletters to specific stakeholders.
In detail, the MIRIA project will develop coatings, deposited with various techniques, which can incorporate nanopowders containing a biocide agent. Various candidate solutions were identified at the beginning of the project, to increase the probability of success. Moreover, the surfaces to be treated are quite different from each other: e.g. coatings that work very well on glass substrates may not be as effective with metal components, and vice versa. Most likely, there will not be a universal solution that can be applied to every type of surface; it is a safer approach to have several candidate coatings to cover as many components as possible.
At the 18-month checkpoint, the project is on schedule. The partners in charge of the production of the nanopowders have already produced the first batches and sent them to the partners who develop the coatings. Numerous laboratory scale coated samples are already available for testing. Functional characterizations showed that some solutions achieved the antimicrobial efficacy targets set for hospital environments (which represent the target of the project); other solutions have not reached the targets but are promising; others did not work. Based on these preliminary results, a second campaign will be planned: the best solutions will be consolidated, the promising ones will be optimized, the ineffective ones will be abandoned to focus on the others.
The functional characterizations are carried out by a team of partners different from those who develop nanopowders and coatings. In this way, all coatings, regardless of the laboratory where they were deposited, will be characterized in the exact same way, allowing comparison between the results. These functional characterizations are: the measurement of antimicrobial efficacy; toxicological tests, to verify that the coatings are harmless to human beings and environment; durability tests, to estimate the service life of the coatings in terms of antimicrobial efficacy.
A further activity started in these first months concerns the detailed design of the simulated operating room and the definition of the tests to be carried out within it.
The described technical effort has been accompanied by exploitation, communication and dissemination activities. The latter, which as mentioned are important for the MIRIA project, in the first 18 months of the project were limited to posts on social media and communications at specialized conferences. In the coming months, as relevant technical results are available, this activity will be expanded to the organization of dedicated workshops and newsletters to specific stakeholders.
The MIRIA candidate coatings were designed to go beyond the state of the art, targeting challenging goals such as: antimicrobial efficacy on a wide range of pathogens; deposition on component of varied sizes, shapes, and substrate materials; compliance to the stringent requirements of the hospital environment. The positive results obtained in the first campaign, on laboratory scale samples, indicate that the design approach was correct.