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posted by Fnord666 on Monday September 24 2018, @10:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the tough-scrubbing-bubbles dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Stiff microbial films often coat medical devices, household items and infrastructure such as the inside of water supply pipes, and can lead to dangerous infections. Researchers have developed a system that harnesses the power of bubbles to propel tiny particles through the surfaces of these tough films and deliver an antiseptic deathblow to the microbes living inside.

Biofilms are slimy colonies of microbes held together by internal scaffolds, clinging to anything they touch. About 80 percent of all medical infections originate from biofilms that invade the inner workings of hospital devices and implants inside patients. Eradication is difficult because traditional disinfectants and antibiotics cannot effectively penetrate a biofilm's tough surface, the researchers said.

In the journal Applied Materials and Interfaces, a team led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign describes how they used diatoms -- the tiny skeletons of algae -- loaded with an oxygen-generating chemical to destroy microbes.

"Most of us get those black or yellow spots in our showers at home," said co-author Hyunjoon Kong, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and a Carle Illinois College of Medicine affiliate. "Those spots are biofilms and most of us know it takes a lot of energy to scrub them away. Imagine trying to do this inside the confined space of the tubing of a medical device or implant. It would be very difficult."

Looking to nature and basic mechanics for a solution, the researchers developed a system that uses naturally abundant diatoms along with hydrogen peroxide and tiny oxygen-generating sheets of the compound manganese oxide.

Video of the microbubblers in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjK4QguW0wA

-- submitted from IRC


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