Researchers discover stainless steel pots and pans 'to keep cheap and hygienic'

Many people use stainless steel pots and frying pans because they are strong and rust resistant. However, when used for cooking many times, there are minor scratches, and there is a problem that bacteria grows there. Benjamin Hatton et al. 'S research team, who is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto in materials engineering, has found a way to keep inexpensive and hygienic, so that bacteria can not breed in fine scratches made in stainless steel pots and frying pans.

Food - Safe Modification of Stainless Steel Food - Processing Surfaces to Reduce Bacterial Biofilms - ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (ACS Publications)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsami.8b03788

Turns Out Cooking Oil Is Ridiculously Good at Repelling Bacteria, Resulting in a 1,000 x Reduction
https://www.sciencealert.com/cooking-oil-secret-weapon-in-fighting-bacteria-in-kitchens

The method discovered by Mr. Hatton 's research team is "to coat edible oil on the surface of stainless steel pots and frying pan". By only doing this it will be possible to prevent contamination by Salmonella , Listeria , Escherichia coli etc.

The research team says, "When coating the surface of stainless steel with edible oil that is sold in general, it is known that the effect of repelling bacteria is very high.In addition to filling fine scratches, oil creates a hydrophobic layer , Bacteria and the like will be difficult to attach ". The following image is a comparison of stainless steel coated with edible oil and those not coated. Both stainless steels are hanging in advance with brown liquid supposed to eat, but you can see that the liquid is not sticking to the coated stainless steel on the left side and is kept hygienic.

In addition, the research team has also verified the effect of cooking oil. According to the verification, it was found that simply coating edible oil on the surface reduces the risk of food poisoning and cross contamination by 1,000 times, and its hygiene degree is equivalent to a very safe and clean kitchen and food processing plant It is said to be.

It has also been reported that coatings are less likely to peel off even if they are washed at a frequency that is not normally possible. Even if the coating peels off, it is possible to re-coating any number of times. Mr. Hatton says, "If you introduce a mechanism to coat once a day, you can always keep sanitary conditions."

At the time of writing, the research team said that they wanted to introduce this technology to developing countries. In developing countries, as many as 2 million people per year are no longer food poisoning, there are major problems in sanitation. So, if we can introduce technologies to coat with cooking oil daily in developing countries, it will lead to saving a lot of lives.

By GSK

Mr. Hatton said, "Contamination of food cookware not only affects our health but it can also develop into a large recall.If the measure is washed with chemicals as a countermeasure, the problem recurs "There is still the possibility that the coating technology discovered by the research team will eliminate hygiene issues of developed countries."