Aerosol-assisted plasma deposition of hydrophobic polycations makes surfaces highly antimicrobial.

The currently used multistep chemical synthesis for making surfaces antimicrobial by attaching to them hydrophobic polycations is replaced herein by an aerosol-assisted plasma deposition procedure. To this end, N,N-hexyl,methyl-PEI (HMPEI) is directly plasma-coated onto a glass surface. The resultant immobilized HMPEI coating has been thoroughly characterized and shown to be robust, bactericidal against Escherichia coli, and virucidal against human influenza virus.