Antiviral surface coating provides additional protection

Nippon Paint and Corning Inc. have developed a special coating to help protect healthcare workers during the coronavirus pandemic

Spotted: Japan’s Nippon Paint and the US-based technology company, Corning Inc., have teamed up and developed a coating designed specifically for frontline hospital use. Both companies share the aim of protecting frontline workers, which they can provide by applying the antiviral coating to surfaces.

Nippon Paint’s Antivirus Kids Paint was tested in January by Texas-based Microchem Laboratory and was found to be able to render more than 99.9 per cent of Feline Calicivirus — an upper respiratory infection in cats — inactive. The US Environmental Protection Agency has approved Feline Calicivirus as a suitable replacement for the detection of human norovirus.

The coating is able to repel microbes as it incorporates Corning Guradiant Antimicrobial Particles, a nascent technology designed to safeguard against viruses from adhering to hospital surfaces. Furthermore, it can also kill harmful bacteria, which include Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Nippon Paint and Corning have donated €65,000 worth of their product to four hospitals in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located and the virus was first reported. Although developed for hospitals and healthcare environments, the paint could eventually be applied across the maritime industry. Hospital ships would be an obvious choice, but it could also be used on surfaces in cruise ships, passenger ferries and other types of commercial vessels.

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