No abstract

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Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), a large proportion of which are derived from contact transmission, represent a massive global challenge. In this study a novel active screen plasma (ASP) alloying technology has been developed to generate highly durable antimicrobial surfaces by combining a wear-resistant S-phase with nanocrystalline silver for medical grade stainless steel. The phase constituent, microstructure, composition and surface roughness of the alloyed surfaces were fully characterized, and the surface hardness, wear resistance and antimicrobial efficiency of the treated surfaces were evaluated. Experimental results showed that the surface hardness and sliding wear resistance of medical grade 316LVM stainless steel can be effectively improved by the ASP alloying treatment; furthermore, the Ag alloyed S-phase can achieve 93% reduction in Escherichia coli (E. coli) after 6 h contact time. Therefore, the novel ASP alloying treatment can not only improve wear resistance but also confer antibacterial activity to stainless steel surfaces.

Antibacterial modification of medical materials has already been developed as a potentially effective method for preventing device-associated infections. However, the thin layer generated, often less than 1 µm, cannot ensure durability for metal devices in constant use. A novel stainless steel surface with both a quick bacterial killing rate and durability has been developed by synthesizing Cu and a supersaturated phase (S-phase) using a new active screen plasma alloying technology. This paper investigated the microstructure of a multilayer (using EDS/WDS, SEM, TEM and XRD) and the viability of bacteria attached to biofunctional surfaces (using the spread plate method). The experimental results demonstrate that the plasma alloyed multilayered surface case consists of three sublayers: a nano-crystalline (Fe, Cr, Ni)3N deposition layer (∼200 nm), a unique Cu-containing face-centred cubic (f.c.c.) γ′-M4N (M=Fe, Cr, Ni, Cu) layer and a Cu/N S-phase layer. The thicknesses of the total treated case and the Cu-containing layers are 15 and 8 µm, respectively. Copper exists as substitutional atoms in the γ′-M4N (with a constant concentration of about 5 at%) and in the S-phase lattice (reduces from 5 to 0 at%). The crystal constant of the Cu/N S-phase layer ranged from 0.386 to 0.375 nm, which is expanded by γ from 4.4% to 7.5%. An effective reduction of 99% of Escherichia coli (E. coli) within 3 h was achieved by contact with the homogeneous Cu alloyed surface. No viable E. coli was found after 6 h (100% killed).