Antibacterial agents are mainly divided into natural, organic and inorganic agents.
Natural agent is developed from either plant or animal extracts. Animal extracts are usually chitosan and lysozyme while plant extracts are usually chitin, mustard, castor oil, horseradish etc. Some microbial antibacterial agents are derived from natural antibiotics. Though they are easy to use, natural agents have a number of demerits, such as low effectiveness, heat intolerance, ineffective sterilisation, short product lifespan and scarce resources.
Organic agents include arylanilines, imidazoles, thiazoles, isothiazolone derivatives, quaternary ammonium salts, bisquats, phenols, vanillin or ethyl vanillin compounds etc. There are indeed dozens of organic agents used in coatings. The agents offer high effectiveness, fast effects and abundant choices. But they are usually highly toxic, of poor heat resistance and easy to generate MultiDrug Resistance(MDR).
Inorganic agents possess key advantages, including no MDR and long-lasting effects. In addition, they are heat resistant and have extended-releasing time, making them favourable for coating applications. Based upon their different mechaisms of action, they can be further divided into two categories: metal ion-containing agents and photocatalytic metal oxide agents.
The antibacterial effect of metal ions generally decreases in the following order: Ag+>Hg2+>Cu2+>Cd2+>Cr3+>Ni2+>Pb2+>Co2+>Zn2+. Zinc ions give low antibacterial effect while silver ions the highest. Nowadays, silver-ions products are most widely found in the marketplace as they also show no drug resistance and cover a broader antibacterial spectrum.
The photocatalytic metal oxide agent bears both antibacterial and anti-mildew effect. In addition, it offers effective sterilisation, rapid disinfection, high degradation, no secondary pollution and high stability. Commonly used are photocatalytic agents as TiO2 and ZnO. However, photocatalytic metal oxide agents exhibit their antibacterial effect merely in the presence of ultraviolet light, consequently limiting their application.
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