DEVELOPMENT OF TITANIA NANOPARTICLE COATED TAPE FOR THE DECONTAMINATION OF SHOPPING CART HANDLES

Abstract

Shopping Carts, a facility provided to the consumers to transport their purchased product, is one of most contaminated surface that harbors bacteria especially on their handles. With the passage of time, the extent of contamination of shopping cart handles is increasing which leads to transmission of infectious diseases among people. To overcome this problem, different strategies have been mentioned in literature like hand washing, antibacterial agents, disposable plastic barriers, and photocatalysis etc. Among all these, photocatalysis is becoming an emerging technique due to its low cost, non toxicity, and being energy independent and environment friendly technique. In the present study, titania nanoparticle suspensions were immobilized on double sided tape and wrapped around the shopping cart handles to provide self cleaning surfaces. Whereas the major species of microbial contamination found on shopping cart handles include Staphylococcus sciuri, Bacillus pumilus, Bacillus aerius, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The coated tapes were tested against E. coli and the isolated bacterial strains (Staphylococcus sciuri and Agrobacterium tumefaciens) with 2 hrs exposure to UV and visible irradiation. The outcomes of the present study indicated that titania nanoparticle embedded tapes are effective in killing E. coli as well as resistant microbes (Staphylococcus sciuri and Agrobacterium tumefaciens) under normal light. Bacterial count was 9.75×106 CFU/ml at the start of experiment while after 2 hrs it was 7.4×106, 1.8×106, 9.0×105 CFU/ml for uncoated, 5%TNPs coated and 1% Ag-doped NPs,respectively. Finally it has been demonstrated that the technique may be effectively used for continual disinfection of the shopping cart handles.