PRA Hygienic Coatings Special Interest Group

1st AGM held on 20 February 2003, at PRA, Teddington, Middx

Report

The meeting was attended by a total of 18 group representatives and 8 PRA staff. Various disciplines were represented.

Apologies for absence were received from:

The welcome was given by John Marshall, MD of the PRA who praised the success of the first year of group operation, confirmed commitment to future progress and indicated potential for the formation of additional Special Interest Groups, such as anti-graffiti.

This was followed by a presentation of group Activities to date, including:-

Reference was made to established working relationships with NSF (USA) for sanitation and CCFRA for the food industry. Hope was expressed for the development of other complementary alliances including the water industry and indoor air quality associations.

Hygienic surface modification was suggested as more descriptive of interest in the complete range of surfaces including HVAC systems, water contact surfaces and even handles.

Webmaster, Dr Yvonne Brown walked the audience through the dedicated website (see www.pra-world.com/hygienic-coatings) with emphasis on links, newsletter/archives and general information. Yvonne made a further plea for more interactive input from members and partners.

John Graystone, Senior Scientific Advisor, gave a fascinating insight into the development of the "knowcoat" concept which can employ advanced intelligent search engines to hunt continuously for Web information on particular coating categories such as anti-graffiti. The information is then compiled into an interactive expert system data base. At the completion of the development project the Knowcoat facility will be available to the PRA for general use. It is probable that, at an early date, Hygienic coatings will be a topic for inclusion in the system

Dr John Holah of CCFRA gave an excellent presentation (PDF format ~100KB) on the driving forces, general activity and current in-house funded research at his association. The interests of CCFRA are mainly related to control of pathogens in prime food production with special attention to the fast growth chilled foods sector. R&D is directed to identifying contamination, checking the efficacy of regular testing, monitoring and cleaning. John stressed the importance of dry surfaces but acknowledged the difficulty of maintaining dryness since moisture, down to even monolayers, is ubiquitous. CCFRA work is currently focussed on whole room sterilisation with special gases and/or germicidal UV flooding. Whatever systems are finally selected the capacity of coatings to remain durable under the selected conditions is important.

Dr Richard Holman, Head of PRA research outlined, previous and current related R&D programmes (PDF format - ~150 KB). The strength of the PRA capabilities for both classic and microbiological related tests (PDF format ~ 160 KB) was presented with comment that hygienic coatings will need to perform at the level expected of conventional high performance coatings.

Richard outlined the work programme for PRA’s current Hygienic Coatings project. Procedures were being developed for sampling and quantifying the bio-burden on real surfaces in public areas. This activity will provide the foundation for setting benchmark definitions of surface bio-burden and will allow the various hygienic-surface technologies to be evaluated with confidence. As this is an industry-sponsored project its results, at the present time, remain confidential to the individual sponsoring companies. Nevertheless this work supports the concerns of many of the Special Interest Group members. It is expected that future topics for inclusion in PRA research programmes will be instigated via the Group.

Bob Springle, PRA Senior Microbiologist, outlined his department’s capabilities (PDF format ~ 20 KB) and his current R&D project on microbial contamination which is being carried out in collaboration with ISML and industrial sponsors.

A debate on the formation of a Steering Committee followed with a presentation of ten nominations representing expertise in many of the relevant multi-disciplines:-

The committee formation is designed to allow membership influence on the future activities of the S.I.G. There is still time to present additional nominations, particularly for skills not yet covered by our initial proposals. Later discussion suggested strongly that a prime task is to produce an initial overarching definition of hygienic surfaces plus detailed sub-categories.

A first draft has been prepared and will be sent to committee members for their input. We will inform members once a definition has been agreed.

The meeting was characterised by lively and productive interaction between delegates which was reflected in the final and, most important, open debate.

Subjects aired included:-

  1. Definitions (see previous section)
  2. More focus on non-food categories, especially the health chain.
  3. Increased attention to the important category of powder coatings
  4. The importance of constant monitoring and testing
  5. Possible selected subject one-day conference between our major global events (every 2 years). Suggestion for subjects please.
  6. Search for external funding for basic research
  7. Input into the establishment of UK and European standards and eventual global harmonisation.
  8. Advantages of not just supplying a can of paint but creating a full contract selection application - monitoring - maintenance - replacements - preparation - operation.
  9. Market size - no reliable global data available. A market to be created (hence the S.I.G.) which is potentially huge and multi-faceted. Our aim is to establish hygienic coatings as a new and significant category.
  10. Importance of partnerships, alliances and special cluster formation for like and complementary technologies. In biofilms various microorganisms can collaborate to defeat our defences, we too must collaborate to coordinate our array of counter measures.
  11. The basic performance parameters of an hygienic coating system should be such that, minus antimicrobial additives, it would represent a very high quality, high value surface for other high performance uses.
  12. Certain other uses such as antigraffiti, anti fouling and exterior anti fungal/algal have some common needs.
  13. Desirability of discussions on R&D programme of common interest.
  14. Surface modification and cleaning systems should be designed in tandem in order to avoid that a formulation, tested in the laboratory with good results, does not break down in terms of film quality and/or biocidal activity when faced with daily abrasive and chemically aggressive attack, perhaps rendered more vicious by simultaneous UV attack.
  15. Next conference paper will be a keynote presentation at Nuremberg with the title “The Severe Climate for Hygienic Coatings.
  16. An atomic force microscope is an advanced instrument capable of producing detailed surface topography maps at exceptionally fine resolution including for monolayers of water. The PRA has its own AFM which is available to carry out work for clients at competitive rates.

We thank all participants for their valuable contributions to the meeting. We will inform members well in advance when our next annual meeting is planned. We confirm that the next conference is planned for 26 -28 January 2004 in Orlando, Florida, USA. The initial press release has been issued and the final Call for Papers will be issued shortly.

Other presentations from the AGM included

Presentation by Ken Johns (PRA) (~5KB)

Presentation by Elisabeth Brown (PRA) on Possible Training Course on Hygienic Coatings (~6KB)