Effectiveness and Durability of a Quaternary Ammonium Compounds-Based Surface Coating to Reduce Surface Contamination

Abstract

Foodborne diseases are of major concern as they have a significant impact on public health, both socially and economically. The occurrence of cross-contamination of food in household kitchens is a serious threat and the adoption of safe food practices is of paramount importance. This work aimed to study the effectiveness and durability of a commercial quaternary ammonium compound-based surface coating which, according to the manufacturer, retains its antimicrobial activity for 30 days, and is suitable for all types of hard surfaces for the prevention and/or control of cross-contamination. For that, its antimicrobial efficacy, killing contact time and durability on three different surfaces—polyvinyl chloride, glass, and stainless-steel—against three pathogens—Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Acinetobacter baumannii ESB260 and Listeria monocytogenes Scott A—were tested according to the current antimicrobial treated surfaces efficacy test (ISO22196:2011). The results showed that the antimicrobial coating was effective against all pathogens with a reduction of >5.0 log CFU/cm2 in less than one minute for the three surfaces, but its durability was less than one week on all surfaces cleaned in the usual manner. Additionally, trace amounts (≤0.2 mg/kg) of the antimicrobial coating, which may migrate into food when contacting the surface, did not show cytotoxicity to human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells. The suggested antimicrobial coating has the potential to significantly reduce surface contamination, ensure surface disinfection and reduce the likelihood of cross-contamination in domestic kitchens, although it is less durable than suggested. The use of this technology in household settings is an attractive complement to the existing cleaning protocols and solutions that are already in place.

Multifunctional Dental Adhesives Formulated with Silane-Coated Magnetic Fe3O4@m-SiO2 Core–Shell Particles to Counteract Adhesive Interfacial Breakdown

“…Regarding quaternary ammonium-based components, it is important to note that not all materials containing these compounds maintain their antibacterial effectiveness over an extended period . The persistence of this effect largely depends on the ability of the antibacterial monomer to cross-polymerize effectively within the dental material .…”

“…Regarding quaternary ammonium-based components, it is important to note that not all materials containing these compounds maintain their antibacterial effectiveness over an extended period. 61 The persistence of this effect largely depends on the ability of the antibacterial monomer to cross-polymerize effectively within the dental material. 35 In the case of the SiQuac-silanized particles used in our study, the chemical bonding of SiQuac to the shell likely contributes to the retention of the antibacterial properties even after aging.…”

Assessing Antimicrobial Efficacy on Plastics and Other Non-Porous Surfaces: A Closer Look at Studies Using the ISO 22196:2011 Standard

“…Most authors report that ISO 22196 [11], without modifications, fails to accurately simulate real environmental and usage conditions and allows for inflated values or erroneous claims of antimicrobial activity, thus compromising the validity of the efficacy result [17,29,37,68]. Since the parameters required by the standard are the optimum conditions to ensure the efficacy of the antibacterial activity of the surfaces, they will not produce the same efficacy results when applied in real-life environments such as hospitals, the food industry and household use, making this protocol a fictitious claim of antibacterial efficacy by the product.…”

“…These authors provided no comments on whether this change in densities significantly affected the antibacterial activity efficacy of the compounds tested. Conversely, 37% of the authors (20 studies) [2,8,24,27,31,32,[38][39][40][41]46,47,50,52,54,56,59,66,68] reported an adjustment of the bacterial inoculum volume due to the size of the test specimen used. This modification has not been reported to influence the result of the protocol since ISO 22196 allows for different sizes/measurements of the test specimen and plastic cover film, as long as the inoculum volume is adjusted to be proportional to the area of the cover film used.…”

“…Another factor that may play a major role in the efficacy of an antibacterial coating is the contact time of the inocula with the treated surface during the incubation of test specimens. A total of 10 authors reported changes in contact time or additional time points [24][25][26]30,41,42,52,60,68]. Ashara et al [60] studied antimicrobial activity for 7, 14, 21 and 28 days instead of the 24-h exposure specified in the standard.…”