This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

The vast majority of folks headed into the new “Fantastic Beasts” exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) will probably be so excited about all the magical creatures they’re about to see that they’ll completely miss a little bit of wizardry at the entrance.

To be fair, since it looks like an ordinary pair of door handles, it’s pretty easy to miss. The door handles do have a superpower, though, namely, the ability to kill germs and viruses in the blink of an eye.

It isn’t actually magic. It’s science. The handles are made of copper, a metal with antimicrobial properties.

“Copper has this amazing ability to release these charged ions, so that when bacteria or viruses land on its surface, it actually attacks the cells, including the RNA and DNA,” explained Kim Tait, PhD in geosciences and the Teck chair of mineralogy at the ROM, the first museum in Canada to start installing antimicrobial copper in high-touch areas.

“People talk about it almost like a bullet going into the inner structure of the cells,” she continued. “Whereas, with stainless steel, some microbes can sit there for days, and then we touch it and pass it along.”

Several other doors at the ROM have had copper upgrades, as have the fixtures in some bathrooms, making the museum the first in Canada to install this antimicrobial metal in some “touch surfaces.” It’s being done in partnership with Teck, a producer that operates British Columbia’s Highland Valley Copper Mine and has previously partnered with the TTC and a few other high-traffic public spaces to make surfaces safer.

Copper’s germ-destroying properties aren’t a recent discovery. The metal has been associated with good health for thousands of years, and it’s even been suggested that the long history of using copper (and its alloys, brass and bronze) for door handles and handrails is because of that association. The ROM, for example, had plenty of bronze and brass touch surfaces already, long before the copper partnership took shape.

The modern era of research into copper’s properties began in earnest about 170 years ago, when French physician Victor Burq noticed that Parisian metal workers — specifically copper smelters — had astonishingly low rates of cholera. It would take more than a century of research for scientists to grasp how this worked: the copper ions’ disrupted the cell functions of many microbes.

At the same time the science was coming into focus though, the use of copper in construction was on the wane. It just couldn’t compete with more affordable materials, such as stainless steel and plastics. It still can’t, really.

“Copper is not cheap, and it’s hard to work with, especially if its shape is complex,” said Larry Pershin, PhD and manager at the University of Toronto’s centre for advanced coating technologies (CACT), one of a team of researchers at the university’s department of mechanical and industrial engineering working on copper’s affordability problem.

“But you don’t need solid copper because only the surface is working on the microbes,” continued Pershin. “So we developed a technology that allows us to deposit a very thin layer of copper on the different substrates to make them esthetically pleasing and antibacterial at the same time.”

Instead of a whole bed rail being made of copper, it can be made of aluminum or plastic and simply be coated with copper.

The team at U of T’s CACT tested their technology at Mount Sinai and a hospital in Peru and found that it was effective against bacteria. Touch surfaces in hospitals are likely where copper will be most in demand, given the rise of superbugs and antibiotic resistance.

There are other applications, too, that can help make a little copper go a long way, including a project Pershin and team are working on at the coating technology centre.

“We recently finished a project that deposited copper particles on face mask filters, and we showed that, after 15 minutes, the COVID virus was dead,” he explained. “So with that extra layer of protection, and with very little copper, a mask can be antiviral.”

This micro-level copper upgrade is probably where most of us will start to notice copper as it makes its big comeback. Copper cellphone cases, key chains and water bottles are already on the market. But it’s the metal’s potential as a public health tool that makes this rediscovery so exciting.

It also serves as an excellent reminder that public health is about more than just vaccines. Increasingly, we’re looking to engineers and designers for advice on ventilation and air circulation. To build a healthier society, we’re going to need a lot of co-operation across disciplines.

Inspiration for the next big public health tool could come from a visit to the copper smelter, the engineering department or, perhaps, even the mineral and gem galleries at the ROM.

Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free)

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com