Talk:Antimicrobial copper-alloy touch surfaces

Length

There are some parts of this article which appear to me to be over long. I'd start with the section heading Approved products, then the list following The following products have been approved for EPA-Registrered antimicrobial copper alloy touch surfaces then goes on almost 200 lines listing things which are on a list. They seem to be a list of things which can be touched. I'm going to be bold and substitute "Many products have been approved for EPA-Registered antimicrobial copper alloy touch surfaces." If there's any objection, please discuss. SchreiberBike talk 03:54, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. A link from the EPA website listing all of the approved products was identified and added...so it is OK to delete this lengthy list from the article. The current article explains research and clinical trial work that has been conducted. As a new and innovative technology, readers will probably want to know that the R&D work has been exhaustive and global in scope.Enviromet (talk) 17:36, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Peer-reviewed research

Following moved off article absent a reason to include:

• H. T. Michels, J. O. Noyce, and C. W. Keevil; Effects of Temperature and Humidity on the Efficacy of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Challenged Antimicrobial Materials Containing Silver and Copper; Letters in Applied Microbiology, 49 (2009) 191–195
• H. T. Michels and D. G. Anderson; Antimicrobial regulatory efficacy testing of solid copper alloy surfaces in the US; pp 185–190, Metal Ions in Biology and Medicine: Vol. 10., Eds Ph. Collery, I. Maymard, T. Theophanides, L. Khassanova, T. Collery. John Libbey Eurotext, Paris © 2008
• L. Weaver, H. T. Michels, and C. W. Keevil; Survival of Clostridium difficile on copper and steel: futuristic options for hospital hygiene, Journal of Hospital Infection, Vol. 68, Issue 2, p. 145-151, February 2008
• H. Michels, W. Moran and J. Michel; Antimicrobial Properties of Copper Alloy Surfaces, with a Focus on Hospital-Acquired Infections, International Journal of Metalcasting, Summer 08, pp 47–56, 2008
• S. Mehtar, I. Wiid, and S.D. Todorov; The antimicrobial activity of copper and copper alloys against nosocomial pathogens and Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolated from healthcare facilities in the Western Cape: an in-vitro study; Journal of Hospital Infection, Vol. 68, Issue 1, p 45-51, January 2008
• H.T. Michels, D.G. Anderson, J.O. Noyce, S.A. Wilks and C.W. Keevil; The Antimicrobial Properties of Copper Alloys and Their Potential Applications; Proceedings of the Sixth International Copper-Cobre Conference, p. 121-133, Vol. I, August 2007
• J. O. Noyce, H. Michels and C.W. Keevil; Inactivation of Influenza A Virus on Copper versus Stainless Steel Surfaces; Applied and Environmental Microbiology, p. 2748 – 2750, Vol. 73, No. 8, April 2007
• H. T. Michels, Anti-Microbial Characteristics of Copper; ASTM Standardization News, October 2006.
• J. O. Noyce, H. Michels and C. W. Keevil; Potential use of copper surfaces to reduce survival of epidemic Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the healthcare environment, Journal of Hospital Infection, Vol. 63, Issue 3, p. 289-297, July 2006
• H. T. Michels, J. P. Noyce, S. A. Wilks and C. W. Keevil; Copper Alloys for Human Infectious Disease Control; Copper for the 21st Century, Materials Science & Technology 2005 (MS&T’05) Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, September 25–28, 2005, ASM, ACerS, AIST, AWS, TMS, ISSN: 1546-2498
• S. A. Wilks, H. Michels and C. W. Keevil; The Survival of Escherichia coli O157 on a range of metal surfaces; International Journal of Food Microbiology, 105 (2005), p. 445-454.
• H. T. Michels; Copper Alloys May Be Allies in Fight Against Germs; in Plumbing Standards-An Official Publication of the American Society of Sanitary Engineers, October–December 2004
• H. T. Michels, S. A. Wilks and C. W. Keevil; Effects of Copper Alloy Surfaces on the Viability of Bacterium, E. coli 0157:H7; The Second Global Congress Dedicated to Hygienic Coatings & Surfaces, Orlando, Florida, US, January 26–28, 2004, Paper 16, Published by Paint Research Association, Middlesex, UK, ISBN 0-9543164-5-2, 2004.
• H. T. Michels, S. A. Wilks and C. W. Keevil; The Antimicrobial Effects of Copper Alloy Surfaces on the Bacterium E. coli 0157:H7; Proceedings of Copper 2003 – Cobre 2003, The 5th International Conference, November 30 – December 2, 2003, Santiago, Chile, Vol. 1 – Plenary Lectures, Economics and Applications of Copper, pp. 439–450, A Publication of The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2003
• P. J. Kuhn; Doorknobs: a source of nosocomial infection?; Diagnostic Medicine, 1983.

LeadSongDog come howl! 02:31, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Effective against viruses?

The claim that copper surfaces inactivate viruses is sort of ... suspicious-sounding. How would they do that, exactly?

So I went looking for the references, and the only one directly cited for antiviral activity is this one, which looks sort of iffy to me. First of all, the domain name does not suggest a disinterested source. Second, the page shows some pretty pictures with green blobs claiming to represent active virus particles, and showing their impressive diminution over time. However, it is not really explained how you distinguish active from inactive particles in a way that makes the active ones show up as green blobs. The pictures are attributed to "Noyce, et al.", but I don't find any answer to who Noyce might be or any further link to the research.

This is not my field. Could I prevail on an expert to look into this? I'll notify WP:MED in case this article isn't on a lot of watchlists. --Trovatore (talk) 07:18, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Copper has some known anti-microbial effects. Google Scholar lists [1] and [2] when discussing "copper vs. viruses" claims. All of these are case studies, though.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:51, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

How's your Spanish? PMID 23559292 fulltext asserts action of copper ions against HIV-1 and influenza A virii in solution. In English, PMID 23743816 also supports action of copper touch-contact surfaces against norovirii, which is very relevant to the cruise ship business. PMID 21193661 cites this remarkable paper which compares survival of influenza A on copper vice stainless steel surfaces, though one of the three authors (Michels) has a declared conflict. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:37, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks all; these refs seem much better than the existing ones. The article has a large refs section but the specific support for the claims about viruses is poor; one or more of these refs should be added as a cite (possibly substituting for the existing one, which as I noted seems weak and maybe not worth including). Anyone feel like taking it on? --Trovatore (talk) 22:07, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

What is not at all clear from what I've seen so far is whether the antiviral action is broad, or specific to only a few types of virii. There's clearly room for someone to do systematic testing of a large range of virii on various common substrates seen in health care environments (e.g. steel, stainless, nickel, copper, brass, bronze, glass, latex paint, epoxy paint, formica, pine, oak, cedar, etc.) to look for survival-vs-time patterns. Of course wp:NOR, but we can still keep an eye out for someone getting around to doing it. It sounds like a potentially valuable bit of infection control PhD fodder. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:27, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Please don't say "virii". There's no such word. It's just "viruses". "Virii" is a nonsense plural made up along the lines of "vaxen" or "unices", but even worse, because those actually fit patterns from German and Latin respectively, but "virii" doesn't fit any pattern from any known language. It looks like an attempt to follow the plurals of Latin second-declension masculine nouns ending in "-ius", but, to state the obvious, "virus" does not end in "-ius", and less obvious, it's not second-declension masculine. --Trovatore (talk) 23:50, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, Trovatore! When referring to an individual virus particle, the word "virion" (plural "virions") is used. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:39, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Otherwise, LeadSongDog has found some good papers on the subject. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:42, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you both. Latin was my worst subject, even in that long-past time when I was a teenage student. I should know better than to just trust my memory on such things. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:55, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

>60% copper concentration?

"All of the alloys have minimum nominal copper concentrations of 60%".

What happens below 60%?

Is there a significant difference between for example 30%, 60%, and 99% copper content?

If one buys a brass or bronze knoor knob from a store in USA or Europe, recently manufactured (not second-hand), does it likely contain >60% copper, if the knoor knob is not marketed as antimicrobial and copper content is not told?

--ee1518 (talk) 18:16, 25 April 2020 (UTC)