Dragonflys’ ‘black silicon’ found to be potent germ-killer, 'spikes' destroy bacteria

Imagine a hospital room, door handle or kitchen countertop that is free from bacteria — and not one drop of disinfectant or boiling water or dose of microwaves has been needed to zap the germs.

That is the idea behind a startling discovery made by scientists in Australia.

In a study published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, they described how a dragonfly led them to a nano-tech surface that physically slays bacteria.

The germ-killer is black silicon, a substance discovered accidentally in the 1990s and now viewed as a promising semiconductor material for solar panels.

Under an electron microscope, its surface is a forest of spikes just 500 nanometres (500 billionths of a metre) high that rip open the cell walls of any bacterium which comes into contact, the scientists found.

It is the first time that any water-repellent surface has been found to have this physical quality as bactericide.

From Raw Story