Over five years Michael Lucas, a PhD student in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Wits, has developed a metallised coating that can be added to surfaces in hospitals to make them capable of self-sanitising. Lucas explains that most hospital surfaces are made of stainless steel and plastic and are sites of contamination. By adding a self-sanitising surface coating, the risk of infection was lowered.
The revolutionary infection control solution is being protected by Wits University through a patent and scooped Lucas top honours at the International Conference on Prevention and Infection Control in Switzerland in September 2019.
