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AssigneeNational Research Laboratories
InventorsGerald L. Maurer, Sudhir K. Shringarpurey
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Antimicrobial agents are disclosed containing as the active ingredient a metal complex of a metal ion and a polyfunctional organic ligand. The antimicrobial metal complexes are characterized by a very unexpected aqueous proton induced dissociation property which causes the controlled release of toxic metal ion at a pH compatible with microorganism growth. This dissociation property is represented by a sigmoidally shaped curve, i.e., one curved in two different directions like the letter "S," on a cartesian coordinate plot of the negative logarithm (log) of metal ion concentration versus the negative logarithm (log) of hydrogen ion concentration (or otherwise known as a pM-pH diagram). Antimicrobial metal complexes are also disclosed which are extremely effective in the controlled release of metal ion from the complex in about the normal range of physiological pH, i.e., about 10.sup.- 4 to 10.sup.-9 moles of hydrogen ion per liter.
A method of controlling microbes in a medium cnducive to microbial growth which comprises contacting said microbes or said medium with an effective antimicrobial amount of a metal complex of a heavy metal ion and a polyfunctional organic ligand in a ratio of 1:1 of the metal ion to the ligand, said ligand selected from the group consisting of an organic acid and a substituted organic acid, said complex having an aqueous proton induced dissociation property represented by a sigmodially-shaped curve on a cartesian coordinate plot of the negative log of the metal ion concentration versus the negative log of the hydrogen ion concentration, said dissociation property causing the controlled release of metal ions at a pH compatible with the viability of microbes in said medium.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.