Please note the Seminar is tomorrow, Tuesday, Jan. 23, at 10:30 a.m., in ARMS 1103 MATERIALS ENGINEERING SEMINAR "Characterization of Surface Damage from Routine Disinfection" By Hyungyung Jo Purdue MSE Ph.D. Preliminary Exam Advisor: Professor John A. Howarter ABSTRACT In settings of the medical industry such as hospitals, the maintenance of hygienic surfaces is necessary in order to prevent contamination by a wide range of hospital associated infections (HAIs). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that high touch surfaces should be cleaned and disinfected on a routine basis, as often as several times per week to daily, in order to prevent the risk of pathogen transmission. Since hospital surfaces are disinfected with high frequency, the materials utilized for environmental surfaces and patient care equipment should have chemical resistance, as well as, must be able to withstand mechanical force. Thus, there are some test methods, such as Eastman-tritan and Sabic protocol, to aid medical equipment manufacturers in selecting materials for their device requirements. However, these tests focus on macro scale damage to prevent 'catastrophic failure'. Although the material largely still functions as intended, there is a potential risk of infection from the mechanically and chemically damaged surfaces, such as increased roughness of surface. Studies of the effects of surface roughness on the cleanability have found that roughened surfaces retained more bacteria after cleaning, due to the fact that bacteria could be trapped on the rough surface. Because there is no standard methodology to measure this impact, a number of relevant methodologies are needed to characterize microscale surface damage as a quantifiable physical or chemical change. To address this concern, this study will utilize various methods such as Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), contact angle measurement, and atomic force microscopy (AFM) in order to characterize a material's potential for surface damage to a degree such that bacterial inhabitation is possible. Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 Time: 10:30 A.M. Place: ARMS 1103