The Copper Shark™ is made with MD-Cu29 antimicrobial copper, the only touch surface material registered by the EPA. Copper continuously kills more than 99.9% of the bacteria and many viruses that cause infections. By using the Copper Shark™ to open lever style doors, turn on faucets, flush toilets and push buttons on ATM’s and elevators in public places, you are effectively putting an antimicrobial barrier between you and touch surfaces that may harbor the most common disease-causing bacteria and viruses.
Copper in the Medical News (It is highly recommended that you take the time to review the studies below to educate yourself on the benefits of copper for infection control).
- NBC: Copper can kill certain types of viruses
- Copper making a comeback as a major disease fighter
- 229E was rapidly inactivated on a range of copper alloys
- Copper Can Destroy Respiratory Viruses
Copper’s Virus-Killing Powers (from Smithsonian Magazine): Bill Keevil, a microbiology researcher at the University of Southampton (U.K.), has studied the antimicrobial effects of copper for more than two decades. He has watched in his laboratory as the simple metal slew one bad bug after another. He began with the bacteria that causes Legionnaire’s Disease and then turned to drug-resistant killer infections like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). He tested viruses that caused worldwide health scares such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the Swine Flu (H1N1) pandemic of 2009. In each case, copper contact killed the pathogen within minutes. “It just blew it apart,” he says.
The EPA has registered about 400 copper surfaces as antimicrobial. But how exactly does it work?
Heavy metals including gold and silver are antibacterial, but copper’s specific atomic makeup gives it extra killing power, Keevil says. Copper has a free electron in its outer orbital shell of electrons that easily takes part in oxidation-reduction reactions (which also makes the metal a good conductor). As a result it becomes a “molecular oxygen grenade.” Silver and gold don’t have the free electron, so they are less reactive.
Copper kills in other ways as well, according to Keevil, who has published papers on the effect. When a microbe lands on copper, ions blast the pathogen like an onslaught of missiles, preventing cell respiration and punching holes in the cell membrane or viral coating and creating free radicals that accelerate the kill, especially on dry surfaces. Most importantly, the ions seek and destroy the DNA and RNA inside a bacteria or virus, preventing the mutations that create drug-resistant superbugs.
The Copper Shark™ is…
- 100% Recycled and Recyclable
- Chemical Free
- Made in the U.S.A.
- Environment Friendly
ATM
Public Toilets
Gas Pump
charles –
Love this! Attached to my key chain. Good to have with the coronavirus coming to the U.S.