Antimicrobial glass and glass-like products and mehtod of preparing same

A method of preparing a glass or glass-like substrate having a contact-killing, non-leaching antimicrobial effective amount of metal ions contained in at least one surface region thereof, which comprises:

• (a) providing a metal ion precursor composition comprising at least one source of antimicrobial effective metal ions dissolved or otherwise dispersed in a carrier material;
• (b) depositing said metal ion precursor onto at least one surface of a glass or glass-like substrate;
• (c) drying the substrate at a temperature of from about 20° C. to about 105° C. for a period of time sufficient to remove volatiles originally contained in said metal ion precursor;
• and
• (d) heating the resulting substrate at a temperature of from about 600° C. to about 650° C. for a period of from about 2 min. to about 5 min. to introduce antimicrobial effective metal ions into any surface of the substrate on which said precursor was deposited, thereby forming a transparent, essentially colorless antimicrobial glass or glass-like substrate having a color of b*<+6 on the CIE international color scale.