For some technical and medical applications additional functionalizations of surfaces in order to achieve antimicrobial effects are useful and desirable. According to state of the art standard biocides like thiazolinones are used as active ingredients. Disadvantages are toxicity and lack of sustainability of effect. A new approach, avoiding the mentioned disadvantages, is the use of nano-silver as active substance. With this technology, cost-effective solutions are possible, because the required drug concentrations can be kept small. Even the concept of action is fundamentally different: There is no drug-release, but only provision of the active substance on the surface in the extended sense of a catalyst. In technical applications mold-formation can be prevented. In medical applications dangerous bacteria and even multi-resistant germs like MRSA are killed. This leads to a general improvement of hygiene. The risk of resistance formation is the smaller, the more numerous the response mechanisms are. The product safety throughout the life cycle is guaranteed by a combination of nanotechnology and polymer technology. The nano-particles are chemisorbed in the polymer via dipole interactions. The paper explains main steps of product development and gives examples of applications.
