A review on coronavirus survivability on material’s surfaces: present research scenarios, technologies and future directions

Abstract

The present pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) becomes a serious concern of global health threat which is elicited by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). This paper focuses on a hitherto untouched material's engineering issue in human scientific fight against the well-known COVID-19. We show here the challenges and possibilities in engineering the surface to fight against survivability of SARS-CoV-2 that has caused a global pandemic. It is a fact that this virus causes severe acute respiratory syndrome and hence is nicknamed as e.g. SARS-CoV-2. In this perspective; the present work provides a critical survey about the severity of indirect contact mode transmission and survivability of various coronavirus families on different material surfaces. Furthermore, the possible direction for future research needed to develop antiviral material surfaces that can be regularly used to tackle such pandemic outbreaks is identified. Finally, the missing link between the biologist's approach and the material scientist's approach in tackling such pandemics is discussed along with scopes and challenges in future interdisciplinary research.

Trends in the Antiviral Chemical Activity of Material Surfaces Associated With the SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak

“…Talebian et al (2020) also propose two more applications for the nanotechnology field: the development of nano-based bactericidal and virucidal disinfectants for air, surfaces, and to reinforce PPE such as facial respirators, by incorporating nanoparticles with biocidal activity, and the development of sensitive nano-based sensors for viral detection for early diagnosis of viral diseases. This last one tendency is also mentioned by Hasan et al (2020b) that exposes that material's surface with tuned electrical and optical properties provided from nanotechnology can be able to detect coronavirus and act as virus sensors.…”

“…They have already proved its antiviral effect against several viruses, such as coronavirus 229 E (Warnes et al, 2015), hepatitis B virus (HBV) (Zan et al, 2007;Lu et al, 2008), herpes simplex virus types 1 (HSV-1) and 2 (HSV-2) and with human parainfluenza virus type 3 (HPIV-3) (Gaikwad et al, 2013), human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) (Borkow and Gabbay, 2004;Lara et al, 2010), influenza virus H1N1 (Borkow et al, 2010;Mori et al, 2013;Monmaturapoj et al, 2018), Norovirus (Warnes and Keevil, 2013;Park et al, 2014), and more recently, against the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Balagna et al, 2020;Behzadinasab et al, 2020). Gold (Au) and zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles have also proved its biocidal activity, as well as silica compounds and carbon-based materials, such as graphene derivatives (Hasan et al, 2020b;Zhou et al, 2020).…”

“…surfaces and objects depending on the type of surface and the environmental conditions, (e.g., temperature and humidity) (Hasan et al, 2020b).…”

“…As for the impregnation of bactericidal and virucidal particles, it enables not only the production of self-sanitizing surfaces to mitigate fomite transmissions (Hasan et al, 2020b) but also biocidal personal protection equipment (PPE), such as masks and gloves, which is a potential mean to limit the transmission of viruses because the current lack of virucidal activity of such PPE makes them a source of infection when discarded (Huang et al, 2020) developed a rechargeable respiratory mask containing graphene oxide, and Aasi et al (2020) developed metal decorated single-wall carbon nanotubes that proved themselves promising aspirants for design of antiviral surfaces. Talebian et al (2020) also propose two more applications for the nanotechnology field: the development of nano-based bactericidal and virucidal disinfectants for air, surfaces, and to reinforce PPE such as facial respirators, by incorporating nanoparticles with biocidal activity, and the development of sensitive nano-based sensors for viral detection for early diagnosis of viral diseases.…”

The viability of SARS-CoV-2 on solid surfaces

“…Finally, other methods of inactivating SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces are discussed. There are two prior reviews of the surface stability of SARS-CoV-2 by Bueckert et al [ 25 ] and Hasan et al [ 26 ].…”