Want to keep bacteria at bay? You could pop down to the pharmacy to buy some antiseptic soap, for example, but it might be easier to reach into your desk drawer. A roll of transparent adhesive tape can be turned into a nifty antibacterial film.
Depositing metal nanoparticles on a film surface can give it remarkable properties: silver turns it antibacterial, copper anti-fungal, and gold makes the film conduct electricity. What is tricky is getting the film to accept nanoparticles in the first place: in most cases you need a harsh chemical bath to break the bonds on its surface.
But adhesive tape comes primed to do chemistry. Just unpeeling it breaks chemical bonds in the adhesive, priming it to react with metals like silver or copper, Bartosz Grzybowski of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and colleagues have found.
Peel, then soak
This means that if you want to coat the tape with nanoparticles, you can simply peel off a length and soak it in a solution of metal salts. For large sheets of tape that aren't on a roll, physically pressing on the tape primes it to react with the solution.
Tweaking the ingredients of the solution yields tape with various properties. Antibacterial bandages and electrically conducting tape are feasible, for example. You can also produce antifungal films that could be stuck on walls in mouldy places like humid basements.
"It's clever," say chemist Katherine Holt of University College London. The potential to tailor and control the nanoparticle growth is worth exploring further, she says.
Journal reference: Journal of the American Chemical Society, DOI: 10.1021/ja507983x
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