Process for producing bactericidal/fungicidal plastic bodies

Details Process for producing bactericidal/fungicidal plastic bodies Process for producing bactericidal/fungicidal plastic bodies

1996-10-02

1999-11-02

Clardy, S. Mark

Drug, bio-affecting and body treating compositions

Preparations characterized by special physical form

Wearing apparel, fabric, or cloth

424404, 523122, A01N 2534

Patent

active

059765623

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to processes for producing plastic bodies that can be further processed, particularly for use in the medical field, and exhibit an antimicrobially effective content of metals or metal compounds (in the following called active agents).


BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

These are especially materials and/or compounds thereof whose oligodynamical effect is known, such as silver, copper and gold, but also other heavy metals such as zinc and also lanthanides that have an effect on bacteria and/or fungi as desired according to this invention, i.e. they eliminate them, they prevent them from multiplying as well as from sticking to or embedding themselves in the plastic, or at least largely keep them from doing so.
A look at the present situation on the market shows that pre-products or finished parts made of such plastics are not yet commercially available, but according to the state of the art they can indeed be produced to function.
One reason why these products have not yet been introduced on the market to a considerable extent, is most likely the question of time and/or energy and thus costs involved in the production of such plastics.
On the one hand, this holds true for the costs of the amounts of metal and/or metal compound necessary for the desired purpose, in particular of silver, when these substances are to be included in the plastic in the powder form, in which case the lower limit for the metal and/or metal compound to be effective is frequently stated to be in an order of magnitude of 1 wt. % of the plastic; however, larger amounts are always stated to be even more effective. In this context, reference is made to the patent publications U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,139, WO-A-84/01721, EP-A-0 190 504, DE-A-37 25 728, EP-A-0 251 783 and DE-A-39 42 112.
On the other hand, this holds true for the costs of the actually rather elaborate wet process for the treatment of plastics, e.g. according to DE-C-42 26 810, which correspondingly is only to be used in special cases and in which very small amounts of the active agent are sufficient.
Another way of avoiding the high material costs for antimicrobial finishing is not to subject the plastic as a whole to antimicrobial finishing but to coat the finished objects produced from this plastic with active agents.
However, all physical methods (such as vapor deposition, cathodic sputtering, plasma-assisted vapor deposition, ionic plating, ion implantation) and also the chemical methods (e.g. currentless electro-plating, reactive vapor deposition, reactive cathodic sputtering, CVD, PACVD) work such that only the surfaces facing the source of the active substance to be applied or, e.g. in the case of plasma-assisted methods, at least only the surfaces openly facing the environment are coated. The internal surfaces of objects, which are usually particularly important for medical applications, e.g. the internal surfaces of catheters, however, cannot be reached by the aforementioned methods and thus remain uncoated.


SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The problem underlying the present invention is thus to provide a method for producing oligodynamically active plastic bodies not exhibiting the aforementioned disadvantages, i.e. that are easy to produce, require only small amounts of oligodynamical metal and/or the compound(s) thereof and uniformly act on all surfaces, also on those that are hard to get to.
This problem is solved by a method for producing plastic bodies having a content of one or several oligodynamically active metal(s) or metal compounds as an active substance, characterized in that the active substance is embedded in the plastic in the form of discrete particles, wherein the amount of active substance is no more than 1.0 wt. %, preferably no more than 0.5 wt. %, based on the total weight of the plastic body, and the maximum size of the discrete active substance particles is less than 500 nm.
Active substances in powder form of any kind that are easy to handle are only produced and for sale with finenesses of grain up to the

REFERENCES:
patent: 5180585 (1993-01-01), Jacobson et al.
patent: 5236649 (1993-08-01), Hall et al.
patent: 5418056 (1995-05-01), Noguchi et al.
patent: 5538766 (1996-07-01), Banks et al.

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