The development of water-repellent and antibacterial medical material metal surfaces by a novel method

Abstract

Infectious diseases are a problem in all departments in the medical field. Therefore, an attempt was made to develop antimicrobial medical materials. Methods reported so far for creating antimicrobial metal surfaces include coating with polymers, blending or covering with antimicrobial silver and laser machining to generate micro-textures to improve water repellency and resistance to biofouling. However, these methods have many problems for practical application in the medical field, such as insufficient antimicrobial resistance and high costs, and there are still issues to be solved.

In this study, microtexture creation by metal fatigue, which is an inexpensive method, was successfully achieved. Antimicrobial properties were confirmed on metal surfaces that were found to be water-repellent.