Short Communication. Corrosion of Gold in Biological Fluid - Urine
Abstract
Urinary catheters are the leading cause of nosocomical urinary tract infections (1). Moreover, the urinary tract infectious are the most common predisposing factor for fatal gram-negative sepsis that originate in hospitals. Unfortunately, even widespread use of antibodies to cure the infection has not been successful. Thus, with all of the existing catheter and drainage bag designs, there is still a major problem with catheter-related infection. The application of electrochemical technology to control microbiological growth has been described in the patent literature for many decades. The long term effectiveness of gold electrodes during electrolysis in killing bacteria in heart fusion broth, and in synthetic urine with or without soy broth has been recently demonstrated by us. Based on this work, a research and development work is in progress to develop a commercially viable catheter device to prevent catheter - related urinary tract infections. Hitherto, the majority of the work on the corrosion of the gold is concern to the electronic industry.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1990
- Accession Number
- ADA228251
Entities
People
- Gopalakrishna M. Rao
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory