Facile Route of Fabricating Long-Term Microbicidal Silver Nanoparticle Clusters against Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Candida auris

Microbial contamination remains a significant issue for many industrial, commercial, and medical applications. For instance, microbial surface contamination is detrimental to numerous aspects of food production, infection transfer, and even marine applications. As such, intense scientific interest has focused on improving the antimicrobial properties of surface coatings via both chemical and physical routes. However, there is a lack of synthetic coatings that possess long-term microbiocidal performance. In this study, silver nanoparticle cluster coatings were developed on copper surfaces via an ion-exchange and reduction reaction, followed by a silanization step. The durability of the microbiocidal activity for these develped surfaces was tested against pathogenic bacterial and fungal species, specifically Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Candida auris, over periods of 1- and 7-days. It was observed that more than 90% of E. coli and C. auris were found to be non-viable following the extended exposure times. This facile material fabrication presents as a new surface design for the production of durable microbicidal coatings which can be applied to numerous applications.