Anti-Viral Protective Surfaces Developed From Solid Waste Components

لقد أدى الإنتشار الأخير لـفيروس COVID-19 إلى وباء عالمي. حيث ينتشر الفيروس بشكل شائع من خلال انتقال العدوى من شخص لآخر أو عن طريق لمس الأسطح المصابة. وقد أثار هذا حاجة فورية لتطوير حلول لمكافحة انتشاره. أن أحد هذه الحلول هو تطوير طريقة لإضفاء خصائص مضادة للفيروسات على الاسطح كغطاء يمكن استخدامه في مختلف المجالات. وقد وجد في الآونة الأخيرة أن استخدام اللدائن الحرارية كركائز للأسطح المضادة للفيروسات كأحد الحلول المبتكرة. وأثبت تفشي COVID-19 االمستجد أن مادة الكلوروكين هي عامل مضاد للفيروسات التي تنشأ من مركب الكينين ليكون فعالًا ضد فيروس كورونا الجديد. ونقوم في هذه الدراسة علي تطوير سطح صحي قابل للطلاء بالمضاد للفيروسات على البلاستيك المعاد تدويره من نفايات البلدية. وبالتالي يهدف المشروع إلى تقديم منتج يمكن تسويقه في المستقبل كمواد تغليف تستخدم في تطبيقات مختلفة ويمكن استخدامه أيضًا كمنتج مستقل لاستبدال الرزم التقليدية.

The concept of developing a hygienic surface susceptible for antiviral agents onrecycled plastic, paves the way to a highly economical rate of return with versatileand wide applications. This application could find its way also in electrical appliances(plastic coats on screens and keypads), hand sanitizer depots, plastic door handles,pens, bank cards, coffee shops surface areas for customers and others. Needless tosay, the medical application field will be of better potential not only for economicbenefits but also safety purposes compared to plastics used through conventionalmechanical recycling. The environmental implications of this idea could be of grandpotential in the current climate of research and development with great emphasis ofnew research trends we are called to address due to the global spread of COVID-19.At present, the general consensus and method for combating COVID-19 seems to bebased on the rather simplistic approach of surface swaps and clean-ups. Surfacesare recommended to be swiped with organic agents that are well known to kill thedeposited viruses. In fact, using such organic based antiviral agents, takingchloroquine as a typical examples have severe disadvantages and limitations. Thesecould be summarised as a short lived requiring constant re-swiping and re-applyingto the surfaces, and possess noxious ingredients with harmful environmentalimplications to produce or process. Therefore, it is necessary to employ differenttypes of such agents that are environmentally friendly and working untruly with thesubstrates without causing degradations. They must possess a high degree ofbiocompatibility and great effect as viral protective coating. They can be usedefficiently for frequently touched surfaces made from different materials,inparticularly plastic waste. Therefore, employing plastic waste surfaces can alsopresent the advantage of having copper, and copper alloys and their nanocompositenanopowders to be used as permanent surface protective coating the recycledplastic surfaces against COVID-19. The use of such nan-coats can easily be appliedon such surfaces which also presents a new venture for this idea of using PSW as ameans to develop antiviral surfaces. Copper and its alloys and nanocomposites canbe safely used to coat all types of solid materials without exceptions. The USEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) registers 355 copper alloys with public health claim (Handbook of Thermal Spray Technology, 2004). The products madefrom any of these registered alloys are legally permitted to make public health claimsrelating to the control of organisms that pose a threat to human health. In order toensure successful coating process and to produce homogeneous porosity-freeplastic coated systems by copper or copper alloys, cold spray coating technology isproposed (El-Eskandarany and Al-Azmi, 2017). In contrast to the conventionalthermal spray approach, cold spray is a solid-state process, in which the coppernanopowders feedstock remain in their solid form without melting and/or graingrowth.