D.S. Tsoukleris, E.A. Pavlatou, S. Spanou, C. Zanella, P. Leisner
65th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry (2014), 31 August-5 September, Lausanne Switzerland (poster)
Hygiene/antimicrobial issues in public places eg. hospitals, schools, hotels, public transportation etc. are of crucial importance as inattention could lead to spread of viral diseases or epidemics and consequently to deaths. It is estimated that 15% of these infections is due to transmission through inanimate objects. Although sanitization and disinfection of surfaces using chemical liquids as chlorine or alcohol is a common practice to prevent transmission of diseases, many times such procedures are skipped, skimped or in the case of public transportation not practically feasible. Specifically, the present work focuses on investigating the efficient immobilization of TiO2 doped nanoparticles in a Sn-Ni metal matrix for the development of hygienic and antibacterial nanostructured coatings being activated indoors, with improved wear and corrosion resistance. This work is part of the SelfClean ongoing EU project, targeting in self-cleaning, antibacterial electrolytic coatings of high aesthetics and durability. Of crucial importance is the percentage of the incorporated nanoparticles. In order to increase the codeposition rate and consequently the photocatalytic activity, pulse current plating has been utilized. With this method higher codeposition rate of nanoparticles can be achieved compared to the conventional direct current plating. These kind of coating will be able to operate under indoor light irradiation and can be applied to common touched objects (knobs, taps, handles) reducing the risk of infection’s transmission by 50-100%. The SelfClean project is on track to achieve the expected results from individual research work packages. One of the first achievements of the project is the mass production of doped TiO2 particulates exhibiting a band gap less than 2.3 eV, able to be activated by indoor light irradiation. The production steps of the electrochemical industrial processes followed in this project, towards the efficient fabrication of the added value composite electrocoatings, as well as the interesting trouble shooting during electroplating will be described in this paper. Finally, the tribological and corrosion characterization of the produced composites will be presented.