ABACO: a thin film revolution, the decisive antibacterial coating

In recent years, the role of bacterial contamination causing serious problems to human life, has emerged. Many sectors are affected by this phenomenon. The Center for Diseases Control and the Food and Drug Administration estimated that, every year in the United States, 3 million people fall ill because of infections related to the consumption of contaminated food. The possible solution to reduce the risk of bacterial infections has been identified in the prevention through the provision of anti-bacterial features to those metal surfaces that are in daily contact with humans. The objective has been pursued through the combination of PVD technology, already widely used for metal coatings in the decorative field, with the evaporation of special metal targets during an innovative thin film coating process. That solution led to the realization of a new family of multilayer thin films doped with nanoparticles with strong antibacterial properties we called ABACO™ (AntiBActerial COating). The effective antibacterial activity of ABACO has been tested and certified by national and international laboratories by the use of normed testing protocols. Laboratories test proved that ABACO combines the mentioned antibacterial properties with the required standard features of high quality PVD coatings.