Design, characterize and validate a new multifunctional coating, with antiviral and antibacterial properties for COVID-19 pandemic

病毒是对人类最有害的病原体之一，每年造成数百万人死亡。2019年，中国湖北省武汉市的一群肺炎病例被确定为新型β冠状病毒，其引起的疾病被称为2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）。COVID-19在短短两个多月内迅速演变为全球大流行。联合国秘书长安东尼奥·古特雷斯认为，世界面临着自第二次世界大战以来最具挑战性的危机，面临着威胁每个国家人民的大流行病，这在最近的过去可能是前所未有的。COVID-19的传播可以通过物理和化学消毒来缓解，例如喷洒或擦拭。然而，消毒是劳动密集型和材料密集型的，对于覆盖所有暴露区域是不切实际的，并且需要定期重新应用。因此，开发能够缓慢释放消毒化学物质以减轻污染物传播的自消毒表面将是有用的。这种涂料应耐摩擦和洗涤，持久，无毒，并应易于施加在人们经常接触的已安装物体的表面上。 本项目的目标是通过将碱性溶液包封在超疏水涂层中来探索多功能抗菌和抗病毒涂层。这种涂层可以长期有效地提高抗菌/抗病毒性能，可以保证抗菌剂和杀病毒剂随时间的适当释放，因此可以大大降低COVID-19疾病的风险。

Viruses are among the most harmful pathogens to the human population and are responsible for the death of millions of people every year. In 2019, a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China were identified as a novel beta coronavirus, and the disease it caused was termed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). COVID-19 has quickly evolved into a global pandemic in just over two months. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres believes that the world faces the most challenging crisis since World War II, confronting a pandemic threatening people in every country that probably has no parallel in the recent past. The COVID-19 transmission could be mitigable with physical and chemical sanitization, such as spraying or wiping. However, sanitization is labor- and materials-intensive, impractical for covering all exposed areas, and needs to be reapplied periodically. Therefore, it will be useful to develop the self-sanitizing surfaces that can slowly release disinfecting chemicals to mitigate fomite transmission. Such coatings should be durable against rubbing and washing, long-lasting, and nontoxic and should be easily applied on the surfaces of already-installed objects that people frequently touch. This project targets to explore multifunctional antibacterial and antiviral coating through an encapsulated alkaline solution incorporated in a superhydrophobic coating. This coating can effectively improve antibacterial/antiviral performance over the long term, can guarantee the suitable release of bactericide and virucidal agents over time, and can consequently strongly impair the risk of COVID-19 diseases.