Thin Innocuous Film Applied To Stainless Steel

[wilg]

Stainless steel becomes prone to finger prints even if you have clean hands. Mostly stainless steel dull(matte) finish is used in Pharmacuetical Industry to reduce glare and this causes additional trouble with the marks.
The presence of oil from skin contact is indicative of the presence of some bacteria, or at least a medium in which they could live. Finger prints are a useful sign of loss of total cleanliness needed for sterility.
Any oil, human or otherwise, will leave a mark on stainless of any surface finish.

A good solution to the problem would be, the application of a thin, innocuous film.
This not only applies to stainless equipment but also to exposed stainless steel ductwork, low return exhausts or returns.

Are there any coatings that are anti-microbial (kill all bacteria on contact) and also prevent fingerprints because they are a thin film of polymer ?
Do these coatings hold up to cleaning materials (such as vespeen (sp))? And would they ever break down and create air-born particles?

 

[quark]

I am also in the same soup for quite sometime and I dicussed this issue in one of the material engineering forums at Thread367-72702 and one more thread is Thread330-75362. These two threads may help you. My main problem was with prebuffed stickered sheets.

IPA suggested by somebody in the one of the threads doesn't seem to be a good option for me. (I even indicated it in my original post) It leaves dark patches.

Any coating should have a good adhesion property to stick to the base metal. This may become our very drawback as particles may get stuck to the coating.

Perhaps we should keep our gloves as dry as possible:-(

Regards,

 

[abcmex]

wilg,
Sure your fingerprints can be seen in some stainless steel finishing and (even if you can not seen this) they leave marks and residues. That is why in areas where this is not acceptable you need to use gloves. The equipment is not the source of contamination but the persons.
Stainless steel is used because it does not emits particles and resist a tough handling. If you could find a coating that is adequate you may coat carbon steel! Still You may find a coating, even perhaps antimicrobial, but in the real world you will see that the mechanical requirements (on impact for example) will limit the aplication. :-(

 

[pennpoint]

wilg, et al:
mabe this will help?

http://www.applegate.co.uk/engineering/pselect/ps_28581.htm

Maybe you should adopt the tenents of the high vacuum industry and glove-up all the time every time. There a fingerprint can prevent you from achieving your vacuum level.

Regards
pennpoint