Antimicrobial glass for improved hygiene and safety

Be it in the food industry or hospitals – antimicrobial glass provides a relevant and future-proof technology to improve hygiene and safety in a variety of applications. Innovative developments such as the UVA activation process enhance the potential even further.

Hygienic surfaces are crucial in many applications, especially so in health care and the food industry. But protection against pathogens is also of major importance in local public transit, restaurants or hotels, where many people get together.

Glass is the ideal material to counteract the spread of pathogens. It is durable, resistant and can be equipped with antimicrobial technologies that effectively kill microbes or prevent their growth on the surface.

Antimicrobial glass contains special additives or coatings that prevent microbes from growing on the glass surface. As a rule, this technology is based on chemical or physical processes. Silver ions, for example, can penetrate microbe cell walls and disrupt their metabolism causing them to perish. The antimicrobial effect is usually activated by a combination of properties of materials that react with the environment (light, moisture, temperature).

Glas Gasser, exhibitor at glasstec, has developed a specific activation process in cooperation with Pilkington SaniTise Glas and the Fraunhofer IGB and Fraunhofer IBP institutes.

Pilkington SaniTise™ glass comes with a transparent, photocatalytic TiO₂ coating that develops antimicrobial properties when exposed to UV radiation. This technology produces a reactive oxygen compound that effectively breaks down microbes on the surface and retains its effect for up to two hours.

This process is also applied to interiors by exposing them to an artificial UVC light source.

Antimicrobial glass technology plays a pivotal role in improving hygiene in vulnerable areas such as clinics and food production. In future, architecture will also profit from the combination of functional protection and aesthetic glass solutions.

When asked which areas of application for antimicrobial glass technology will be particularly relevant in the coming years, Herwig Gasser from Glas Gasser explains that viral illnesses caused by contact infection, such as COVID-19, as well as nosocomially acquired infections could be significantly reduced or prevented.

Antimicrobial glass technology is just one of many innovative coating processes. For an article on glass that serves to improve mobile signal reception click here.