coppertalk

By Wilton Moran, Copper Development Association Project Engineer, Material Sciences

Wilton Moran is a member of CDA’s Technical Services Team, which manages the Public Health Initiative. Wilton, Harold Michels, the CDA’s Senior Vice President of Technology and Technical Services, and other members of the team last month attended the Fifth Decennial International Conference on Healthcare-Associated Infections in Atlanta. The CDA spearheaded the effort to get EPA registration of copper alloys as antimicrobial public health products in 2008. The CDA presented findings from the second phase of a clinical trial at the conference.

Attending this conference has been one of the goals of the CDA. It’s a conference that happens once every 10 years and infectious disease experts from all over come to the meeting. There were many important people to reach and we had a story to tell. Two things were happening. We were presenting the results of the second phase of our clinical trials and we had a booth in the exhibit area that allowed us to talk to people about what we were doing and to show our new brand – Antimicrobial Copper.  

The results from the second phase of the hospital trials were presented by the clinical research team in a poster session. They attracted a lot of attention. Many of the people that saw the poster subsequently visited the booth to see Antimicrobial Copper components. Many provided us with their contact information and asked to be updated on the progress of the program. People would ask us about antimicrobial copper surfaces and how they were made – if there was a coating or something applied to the surfaces. We explained that the metals are intrinsically antimicrobial. They were curious and wanted to know more. Our goal was to create awareness and from that perspective our booth was a big success. We were busy throughout the convention talking to people and explaining what Antimicrobial Copper has to offer.

We also had questions about what type of organisms copper can kill. Companies that make infection control products also wanted information from us. This also gave us an opportunity to debunk some of the misconceptions about copper. People were concerned about the cost of copper and how they might incorporate it into their products. We were able to tell them that copper alloys have very good fabrication properties and are very easy to work with, so the fabrication process is much less energy intensive than for many other metals, including steels.  They may pay a little bit more for the materials, but they also have a product with an added value. We also explained that the cost of materials is only a small fraction of the final cost of a product. We want potential customers to know that working with copper is not prohibitively expensive.

At times, we were overwhelmed by the number of visitors at our booth. The conference was an incredible experience and it tells us our work is important and infectious disease specialists are excited about the potential of antimicrobial copper once they learn about it. Our hope is to inspire people to see what copper alloys can do and how they can benefit from what we’re doing.