Tea–Essential Oil–Metal Hybrid Nanocoatings for Bacterial and Viral Inactivation

Natural plant-derived antimicrobial nanocoatings have been synthesized by mixing brewed tea with cinnamaldehyde oil. Concurrent addition of copper or silver salts produces hybrid tea-cinnamaldehyde-copper tea-cinnamaldehyde-silver nanocoatings, respectively. Tea-cinnamaldehyde, tea-cinnamaldehyde-copper, and coatings are all found to display strong antibacterial efficacy against both Gram-negative Escherichia coli Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (Log10 Reduction = 8.44 7.90, respectively). Tea-cinnamaldehyde-copper deposited onto nonwoven polypropylene provide 98.6 99.8% deactivation, respectively, toward murine coronavirus MHV-A59 (a potential surrogate for COVID-19 global pandemic SARS-CoV-2). Key advantages this approach that the coating fabrication involves just a single step, utilizes cheap reagents (which widely available over counter general public), does not require any equipment apart from container, spontaneously adhere variety substrate materials (including silicon, glass, polyester, polypropylene, poly(tetrafluoroethylene), cotton). Tea is one most ubiquitous beverages in world, meaning these could be produced locally almost anywhere anyone without need specialized technical training expertize (for example, at remote field hospitals during humanitarian crises low-income countries). © 2021 The Authors. Published American Chemical Society.