Electric Silver Antisepsis

Use of silver as a topical antimicrobial agent has been hampered by the absence of a method of providing sustained delivery of the silver ions. One possible solution is the use of silver-coated fabrics as both wound dressings and silver-ion emitting anodes in a simple electric circuit. The antimicrobial dose would then be determined by Faraday's law. In the biological environment, silver-coated materials studied thus far have not behaved as predicted. We have discovered a silver-coated fabric, designated IT, that is almost perfectly Faradaic in vitro up to 0.8 C. The silver ions thus liberated were effective in inhibiting the growth of microorganisms. IT has potential for development as a charge-controlled topical antimicrobial agent.