Radical Materials has launched an antimicrobial additive under its SteriTouch® brand which has demonstrated efficacy of 99.9999% within 3 hours against bacteriophage Phi6 and 93% in 2 hours against SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19.
The result of many months of development and testing, the new additive is supplied as a liquid and is suitable for most solvent-based applications. Radical is continuing with the development of antiviral additives, specifically for water-based systems and polymers.
“Having tested most active substances, including those based on silver, copper, zinc, silane quats and several organics, we now have a much clearer picture of how each performs in different materials and under different conditions.” said company director Nick Corlett.
“There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution, so our intention is to develop a range of anti-viral additives suitable for most of our customers’ applications. We have taken our time to reach this point, but it is important to us that all products carrying the SteriTouch brand are diligently tested and provide robust performance.”
“The last twelve months have seen a great many new products arrive on the market making excessive and often unsubstantiated claims, but Radical is fortunate to be working with some very committed partner companies, intent on delivering genuinely beneficial products.”
Radical Materials is confident in its ability to improve upon this most recent result: “To date, we have only tested one coating containing the new additive against SARS-CoV-2. The results were good [93% reduction in 2 hours] but given the exceptional performance of the additive against Phi6, we would be most surprised if we can’t achieve even better efficacy against SARS-CoV-2.”