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Copper against Covid

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Enthalpy:
Hello everybody!

A new study is available on medrxiv prior to peer-review and publication
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v2.full.pdf
it tells that Covid-19 "lives" shorter on a surface of copper than of stainless steel, cardboard or polymer. Silver was not tested.

A friend of mines proposes and will try to cover doorknobs with copper tape in collective houses. If the quite thin copper foil doesn't hurt the hand, this seems a good idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_tape

I suppose the intricate shape takes narrow tape to cover, where individual layers are loose but two overlapping layers cover the knob completely. The copper tape would end where hands don't touch if possible, and be covered by usual adhesive tape there.

All retail is closed here, but copper tape exists at Web sellers, as long as deliveries work.

Corribus:
FYI: It is now published at NEJM.

wildfyr:
It's still on the order of hours to disinfect. I am not surprised that the toxic effects of copper on micro-organisms works with this virus. I would be more shocked if it didn't.

It makes superoxides, and will ligate virtually any amine to snarl up molecular machinery. It will also peroxidate lipids, ruining the envelope of the virus.

Enthalpy:
The friend sent me pictures of copper tape on the doorhandle, appended here.

The sheet's edges are a weak point of the construction. They might hurt the user or accumulate dirt and viruses at the concave angles, spoiling the benefits of copper.

That reason favours the broad copper tape over my proposed helical winding of narrow tape.

Rounded corners would stay glued on the handle and be less dangerous.

Maybe solder would secure the edges and fill the concave angles, drawing appended. I'd also flatten the edges by pressing with a hard round tool, maybe a light hammer, before sticking and soldering, and sand after soldering.

It's not investigated against Covid, but usually silver sterilizes better than copper does. Solutions exist to deposit it on copper by immersion.

Enthalpy:
One step better, IF silver destroys the Covid virus efficiently:

Deposit a silver film directly on the handle or the item. Solutions exist for that. The surface acts as a catalyst, and it doesn't have to be metallic. Easier than copper, mechanically safer.

Primers or treatments may be useful, or not, to let the silver layer adhere on varied materials. Handles are often coated with some unreactive polymer. Degreasing is a minimum, maybe sanding a little bit with quite fine paper.

Silver handles could be useful in hospitals for instance.

Marc Schaefer, aka Enthalpy

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