MODELING OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS OF COPPER: APPLICATION OF ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY

Bacterial infections pose a significant global-health challenge and have garnered significant attention due to their widespread impact on human health. The aim of this study is to examine the transport behaviour of copper ions, which have been proposed to play a major role in the killing process of bacteria. Specifically, this study explores how roughness of copper surface impacts the release of copper ions in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) solution using finite element method, with the goal of shedding light on the contact-killing mechanism of bacteria. The radial-dependence of copper concentration was taken into account when interpreting the transport of released copper ions. The simulation results show that the concentrations of copper ion release from copper surfaces with nanoscale and microscale roughnesses were similar and comparable to those from a smooth surface. This suggests that surface roughness had a negligible effect on the release of copper ions. The simulation results are also in good agreement with the experimental results previously reported in the literatures. This is evident that the antibacterial activity of copper is more significantly influenced by direct contact between bacterial cells and rough surfaces of copper, rather than copper ion-bacterial interactions. Therefore, the insights gained from this study can serve as valuable guidelines for the design and development of antibacterial materials