Antibacterial Effect of Materials and Biofilm

What is it about?

In this chapter, antibacterial effect is explained. Some materials could show the effects. From the viewpoint of their mechanism, antibacterial groups can be divided into three classes. The first consists of metallic materials such as silver, copper, etc. From some concrete examples, the metallic ions dissociated from the metals themselves or their compounds work to show antibacterial effects. The second class is composed of photocatalytic compounds. In this case, produced radicals control the bacterial growth. The third class contains organic materials. Generally, organic materials cause impairment of cell membranes inside the peptidoglycan. The first consists of antibacterial metals could control biofilm formation, since they would inhibit bacterial growth on material surfaces. However, biofilm control is basically a broader and more complicated concept than the antibacterial effect for planktonic bacteria. Therefore, more versatile countermeasures could be proposed to control biofilm formation and growth.

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Why is it important?

Antibacterial materials surfaces could control the growth of bacteria on them. Since anti-biofouling (or anti-biofilm) surfaces can be defined as the surface controlling the growth of bacteria, antibacterial surface would be anti-biofilm surfaces in most case. But both characteristics are different, strictly speaking, since biofilm formation is consisted of multi-steps. Biofilms change with time, while antibacterial effect of materials surfaces is only a stage of whole processes for biofilm formation. In this chapter, readers could see clearly what those differences are.

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