Drug – bio-affecting and body treating compositions – Inorganic active ingredient containing – Heavy metal or compound thereof
Reexamination Certificate
2000-12-19
2004-04-27
Pak, John (Department: 1616)
Drug, bio-affecting and body treating compositions
Inorganic active ingredient containing
Heavy metal or compound thereof
C424S404000, C424S417000, C424S603000, C424S076800, C424S409000, C510S319000, C510S382000, C422S037000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06726936
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an antimicrobial agent, detergent, laundry supplement, disposable sheets, and disposable sheet set, and a producing method of the antimicrobial agent, and an antimicrobial treatment method. Particularly, the invention relates to an antimicrobial agent used to apply antimicrobial treatment such as disinfection (sterilization), deodorizing, mildew proofing, and sanitization on target objects such as houses, hospitals, public facilities, industrial products, industrial wastes, and home appliances, and a producing method of such an antimicrobial agent, and an antimicrobial treatment method for treating the target objects with the antimicrobial agent, and the invention also relates to a detergent and laundry supplements used to wash fiber products of, for example, clothes, bedding, and medical use among various other products, and an antimicrobial treatment method for treating target objects such as these fiber products, and also disposable sheets and a disposable sheet set suitable for use in beds of permanently-ill patients.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In recent years, in-hospital infections by MRSA (Methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus
), or infections by the enteropathogenic bacteria
Escherichia coli
(O-157) and other bacteria have become such a serious social problem that there is strong need for counter-measures against these infections. Further, with increase in number of air-tight housing, such as apartments, there has been high demand for mildew proofing in places where humidity is high, such as bathrooms.
Conventionally, for disinfection to prevent infections in hospitals and houses, it has been common practice to adopt chlorine-containing disinfectants such as sodium hypochlorite, sodium chlorite, sodium dichloroisocyanurate, and sodium trichloroisocyanurate, or quaternary ammonium salts such as benzalkonium chloride.
In particular, chlorine-containing disinfectants have such superior properties as demonstrating the disinfecting effect on eumycetes and various species of bacteria except tubercle bacillus, having wide disinfecting spectrum and thus can deactivate viruses, having immediate effect, preventing resistant bacteria, capable of oxidative decomposition of odor components in addition to and at the same time as disinfection, and converting itself after decomposition to sodium chloride or urea which is safe, and thus the chlorine-containing disinfectants have been most commonly used among other disinfectants.
However, the chlorine-containing disinfectants have such drawbacks as not showing the residual effect, and failing to inhibit proliferation of air-borne microbes which were newly introduced after the treatment, which necessitated repeating the treatment quite often. Further, with regard to the quaternary ammonium salts, while their disinfecting properties are similar to that of the chlorine-containing disinfectants, they are incapable of decomposing odor components and react with common anionic surfactants and deactivate itself, and thus had the problem of limited use compared with the chlorine-containing disinfectants.
Meanwhile, conventionally used antimicrobial agents having a long-term and sustained effect on bacteria and molds have incorporated ions of heavy metals such as zinc, silver, and copper. The heavy metal ions have such properties as having a wide disinfecting spectrum, showing strong disinfecting effect in particular on bacteria, having long-term and sustained antimicrobial effect, and preventing resistant bacteria. As such heavy metal ions, silver ion has been widely used recently since it is superior especially in safety.
However, the silver ion is insufficient compared with oxidizing agents such as chlorine-containing disinfectants when it comes to disinfecting effect and deodorizing effect immediately after the treatment, and in order to effect the mildew proofing properties, the silver ion needs to have a higher concentration than the case for bacteria. There is a further problem in silver ion in that when sulfides exist in the target object (object to be treated), the silver ion converts itself to sulfide which is water insoluble, with the result that the antimicrobial effect suffers significantly in subsequent treatment.
In view of these drawbacks, the inventors of the present invention studied to develop antimicrobial agents having a wide disinfecting spectrum, capable of preventing resistant bacteria, having good safety, having both immediate and residual effects with respect to disinfection as well as deodorizing, and having good resistance for the sulfide, by combining the oxidizing agents having the immediate effect and the silver ion having the residual effect.
According to the study by the inventors of the present invention, the silver ion, when combined with the oxidizing agents, preferably exists in the aqueous solution state. The silver ion may be kept in the solution state by conventionally known methods such as turning silver ion into complex salts of thiosulfate or thiocyanate, or into silver salts of amino acids. However, the anionic ions of thiosulfate, thiocyanate anion, or amino acids, when mixed with the oxidizing agents, are decomposed by the oxidizing effect of the oxidizing agents with the result that the active ingredient, the silver ion, precipitates as hydroxides, which prevented the complex salt of silver thiosulfate, thiocyanate complex salt of silver, and silver salts of amino acids from being mixed with the oxidizing agents.
Further, in recent years, there have been proposed many fiber products such as clothes and other various bacteria-proof products which have been subjected to the antimicrobial treatment (including sanitization and sterilization). Generally, these bacteria-proof products come to have antimicrobial properties by the solid (powder) antimicrobial agents which are pre-fixed on the surface and elsewhere of the fiber products. As such solid antimicrobial agents, organic antimicrobial agents which are hardly soluble in water, or hardly water-soluble compounds of metals such as silver having antimicrobial properties have been used.
Meanwhile, liquid or water-soluble antimicrobial agents have been put to practical applications as well. As such liquid or water-soluble antimicrobial agents, alcohols, phenols such as cresol, and quaternary ammonium salts, as well as complex salts of antimicrobial metal such as silver salts of amino acid, thiosulfate, and thiocyanate have been used.
However, the bacteria-proof products (fiber products, etc.) which were treated with the conventional antimicrobial agent lose their antimicrobial properties when their surface is covered with dirt, etc. Further, when silver compounds are used as the antimicrobial agent, the antimicrobial properties are lost when the silver is sulfidized.
Also, the conventional solid antimicrobial agent needs to be fixed on the surface and elsewhere of the products by pre-kneading or other special treatment. Thus, once the antimicrobial properties of the product are lost, for example, by dirt or sulfidization of the silver, an industrial-scale treatment technique is required to recover the antimicrobial properties by treating the product again. Thus, with the antimicrobial treatment method by the conventional solid antimicrobial agent, it was difficult to sustain the antimicrobial properties of the bacteria-proof products or recover the antimicrobial properties by re-treatment of the products conveniently at home.
In contrast, the conventional liquid or water-soluble antimicrobial agents have the advantage that the antimicrobial properties can be effected by directly applying the agents on the surface of the products in use. However, these liquid or water-soluble antimicrobial agents applied on the surface of the fiber products completely dissolve into water by washing and the antimicrobial properties are easily lost.
Further, the antimicrobial agents of alcohols or phenols have the problem that a sustained antimicrobial effect cannot be obtained since they are volatile and easi
Asano Satoshi
Soeda Yasutaka
Yokosawa Yuuichi
Nixon & Vanderhye P.C.
Pak John
Sumitomo Metal & Mining Co., Ltd.
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