Copper vs. Stainless Steel

Mostly cost...but that's claimed as a misconception....

https://www.contagionlive.com/news/copper-surfaces-in-hospitals-help-wipe-out-bacteria

..."Myth #2: “Copper is too expensive to install in a hospital.”

Fact: According to the Copper Development Association, the estimated cost to convert primary surfaces in a hospital room (bed rails, IV poles, tables, chairs, etc.) is estimated to be between $7,700 and $15,000 per room. Based on a business model that assumes a 20% reduction in infections (a modest reduction compared to the almost 60% reduction demonstrated in clinical trials), this one-time investment generates a positive return within a year. Scott Adams, CEO of Pullman Regional Hospital, added that “installing copper in just about 10 percent of surfaces in an ICU can cut hospital acquired infections by 58 percent. Data like this clearly supports our ongoing commitment. The cost of adding some copper surfaces in our facility is far outweighed by the financial and personal costs of ongoing care and prolonged illness in our patients.”"...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertszczerba/2014/04/10/copper-is-the-new-gold-standard-for-saving-lives/#677d39577238

Do you ask this with an eye towards the antimicrobial nature of copper?

Various SS alloys, while nowhere as useful in the anti-germ warfare constantly waged in a hospital, are much more durable and stronger than elemental copper (quite soft). Medical facilities are, regarding the actual facilities themselves, rather violent places. Bedpans, door and casework hardware, rolling beds, housekeeping carts... everything in a hospital lives a difficult life: to borrow a phrase from the package delivery industry, everything under 50 pounds is thrown, if over 50 pounds it gets dropped. As opposed to a package being delivered once, a bedpan is rough handled thousands of times.

Copper simply cannot tolerate this hard use. If alloyed, the copper quickly loses the advantage of microbicidity, and will never be as tough as any SS alloy.

Copper has proven natural aspects that are now being utilized, and slowly starting to add copper to many places will show advantage. The electro -chemical aspects of copper are / have been studied throughout history. Relatively new anti-bacterial properties of copper will find a prominent place because it "works". It's strength comes with its purity, and nano copper, gold, silver will be in our future.

Wow, SE, the pros and cons of your very valid posts were the most informative, although the "aloy" of words was a bit much. For me, the pros far, far outweigh the cons, only because of the purity of copper. Excessive consumption of anything is well.......excessive. I "handled" copper for 25 years of my life, and so far I feel OK ,I will say, the comment about quickly flushing your drinking water lines in the morning is a very good habit to be in, no matter what the pipes are made of. The world drank water through "lead" pipes for a very long time because it was easy. Now of course, lead was "found out". (Thank God for curiosity) . Talk about changing our DNA. This CR-4 forum is the best. We should expand it into young peoples realm, because reading and writing are king. T Y

Another Wow! I read a good bit of the article in your link, but it would take me the better part of a week to read and understand most of it.

FWIW, I've lived in a house with all copper piping for water, for the last 48+ years, and have had none of those symptoms. If there is an anode rod, I'm not aware of it... On the other hand, our water is as close to perfect as any domestic water I'm aware of: it's mostly snowmelt that spent virtually none of its time in the ground. The mineral content (both solid and dissolved) is extremely low. Our 66-year-old bathtub faucets show no sign of mineral deposits, and we don't bother to dry the car after rinsing it with tap water. I recently cut open a 5-year-old refrigerator water filter, and could se no sign of deposits of any kind!

P.S. Our copper pipes were soldered long before they started using lead-free solders...

^{old timers soldered pipes together properly with very little migration within the pipe . still a good practice to run water a bit first thing in the morning. Monolithic, soldered copper systems are still, by far the best.}

The anode mentioned is in the water heater....

Water varies in characteristics widely from place to place....

Unfortunately, Chloramines are a major cause of corrosion on the interior surfaces of copper pipes, resulting in pinhole leaks and water damage in homes. ... Pinhole leaks can also be caused by particles of corrosion from old water heaters.Nov 14, 2014

Chloramines (also known as secondary disinfection) are disinfectants used to treat drinking water and they: Are most commonly formed when ammonia is added to chlorine to treat drinking water. Provide longer-lasting disinfection as the as the water moves through pipes to consumers.Nov 2, 2016

http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/water/factsheet/com/copper.html

Ah! I thought you were referring to an anode rod for the whole piping system...

On the other hand, I was not aware of anode rods for water heaters, either. I just checked my (propane, 40 gal) water heater, and find no evidence of any anode rod. I have replaced the water heater twice in the 48.5 years I've lived here, and the only maintenance I've ever done is to replace the thermocouple. The current one has a date of 1996 on the tag, but it's not clear whether that is a date of design or manufacture; I'll have to dig out the paperwork to see when it was installed.

Perhaps the local suppliers know that our water quality does not require anode rods.

Well all water heaters that I know of have sacrificial anode rods except the plastic ones, like Rheem Marathon for instance, but the rod is to delay the rust through of the tank....It can be under the sheet metal on some cheaper models....

Most of those rods , if not all are made of magnesium and give water a rotten egg smell. Years ago people would remove these rods to get rid of the smell, however now days it is almost impossible to remove these rods, they use some sort of lock-tite on the threads that make them very difficult to remove.

oilcan13

you are mistaken, my water has never smelled like rotten eggs.

sometime it smells like chlorine when the water company gives the system a shock.

Yes I have to agree, I believe it is sulfur that causes the rotten egg smell....

Yes the rotten egg smell is Hydrogen sulfide. Some wells in my area have this problem.

Let's just say it's not a good idea to cook with copper utensils, or drink from copper cups...The toxicity level was I think discovered because a guy was mixing cocktails in a a copper container, probably orange juice, highly acidic, or coke, in any case it doesn't hurt to be aware....also not a good idea to overdose on zinc on a regular basis...

https://www.nap.edu/read/9782/chapter/8#130

Obviously, by definition, it is not a good idea to overdose on anything!

As far as cooking utensils go, I'm much more concerned about aluminum. When I was a child, virtually all of our cooking utensils were aluminum (mostly cast, but a few stamped). By the time I was old enough to notice, all of those utensils were significantly pitted, meaning that the aluminum had dissolved into our food. I remember at least one stamped aluminum pot where at least one of the pits penetrated the full thickness of the metal.

As soon as I started doing my own cooking, around 1960, I switched to stainless steel. We purchased a tri-ply Stainless cookset around '68, and those 50-year-old pots still look new, except for discoloration, and a single pit on a single pot which presumably indicates a flaw in the original sheet metal. Fortunately, those pots are magnetic, so do work fine on our Induction cooktop.

By overdosing I meant taking more then the recommended dosage, which many people do, to mitigate colds and flu....but zinc can deplete copper levels leading to deficiency, which leads to a whole nuther set of maladies....

Is there any other definition of overdosing? Is there any relevance of zinc in a discussion of the relative advantages of copper and stainless steel in hospitals?

Yes,,,and yes....

In your dreams and in your dreams?

Here are some pro's and con's for electric water heaters. 1. They can be installed anywhere in your house. (NEVER put a L. P. Gas H2O htr. In basement) 2. They can be wrapped with thick insulation to increase effenciey. 3. They are not a fire hazard or C O hazard. (you can store things next to them). 4. They are relatively easy to install/replace. 5. They are inexpensive (all things realitive). Con's 1. 240 VAC means electrolysis, which means insides get coated with a build up (can't be avoided, even if you could replace the annode, which is rare.) This is the reason electric h2o htrs. life span is about 5 years not 20. (contractors install water heaters and furnaces, in closets because they're cheap). If you are building a home , make sure there is a dedicated mechanical room (water heater, heating sys., electrical, cable phone). Have your plumber install piping and floor drains so any 'tanks' can be flushed by owner every year or so. (This will add a bit of extra time for elect. H2o htrs.). Also have main water pipe from street, enter mechanical room with a dual cartridge (clear) filter system. ( a good mech. room is owner friendly and saves a ton of heart ache.) Tall tanks are much better than short fat ones. The 240 VAC elements will need replacing every 5 years or so. Older htrs consume (because elements cake up) massive amounts of electric power. New htrs. don't stay new for long. Nat. Gas water heaters are (in my opinion) the most efficient. Many homes have electric water heaters, so all you can do is 'wrap' them with insulation, and have your plumber show you how to 'flush' your tank once a year. The 'issues' with copper in drinking water, and corrosion are very minor. Copper will last a lifetime, so use it whenever possible.as far as corrosion goes, the only thing that destroys copper pipe is a 'recirculation' system on not water tanks. (Having 'instant ' not water at your tap is not all that it's cracked up to be)One last thing about copper piping in homes, when installed and tested it becomes a monolithic system. The new piping systems are made up of many many different parts (poly pipe, brass/bronze fittings, copper crimp fittings, all expanding and contracting at different rates) and can never be 'monolithic' or 'pure'. Trust your older local plumber and gas man.

one can electroplate the copper onto a surface of a material that has structural integrity

Everything old is new again. Hospitals used to be typified by brass handrails and other such items. The sales pitch of SS was that it always looked good and required less cleaning to "look clean".

The old surgeon that I worked with was adamant that the migration to SS was only going to lead to poor outcomes. Surgical scissors for instance used to have copper alloy blades that were easily sharpened and easily sterilised and could be replaced when they were worn. He didn't mind the handles and such being SS.

I've been looking forward to the realisation that since the copper effect on microbes is chemical, unlike antibiotics, there is no microbial immunity cycle.

Why do you think that "athletes socks" are now impregnated with microfine copper filaments. This kills the pathogens.

The copper doesn't have to be "pure", similar effects are observed with alloys,

Some organic gardeners will insert a copper wire through tomato plant stems as a means to stop infection of their plants.

Roman and Greek travelers used to drop copper or silver coins into wells to "clean" the water.

Modern African aid programs are delivering water pots that have exposed copper in them and thus in contact with the water overnight to provide pathogen free outcome, even though it might still look cloudy.

1. We used to put copper pennies on our mouth to fool cops and parents.

Yes, stainless pennies wouldn’t have fooled anyone.

Actually, in WWII (1943-44) they did make pennies out of steel to conserve copper.

http://americancoinnj.com/blog/steel-pennies-wartime-u-s-pennies-non-copper/

Tests have shown that money is extremely dirty:

"A 2002 report in the Southern Medical Journal showed found pathogens — including staphylococcus — on 94% of dollar bills tested. Paper money can reportedly carry more germs than a household toilet. And bills are a hospitable environment for gross microbes: viruses and bacteria can live on most surfaces for about 48 hours, but paper money can reportedly transport a live flu virus for up to 17 days. It's enough to make you switch to credit."

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1914560_1914558_1914544,00.html

It seems that pennies might be the exception. Too bad you can't buy anything with them anymore.

Actually, a number of metals show antibacterial qualities, copper and silver being the most commonly used. It would seem that metal coatings could be as effective an antimicrobial as solid metal at a reduced cost.

"It is now common knowledge that a variety of metal ions are toxic to bacteria (Nies, 1999; Harrison et al., 2004). Overall, the metals that are being increasingly considered for antimicrobial agents are typically within the transition metals of the d-block, (V, Ti, Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Tb, W, Ag, Cd, Au, Hg) and a few other metals and metalloids from groups 13–16 of the periodic table (Al, Ga, Ge, As, Se, Sn, Sb, Te, Pb and Bi). An interesting discovery made over 10 years ago that metals have strong efficacy against microbes growing as a biofilm (Teitzel and Parsek, 2003; Harrison et al., 2004). This was significant as a quintessential phenotype of biofilms is their antimicrobial resistance (Stewart and Costerton, 2001). Furthermore, metals have shown some efficacy on persister cells, the dormant variants of regular cells that were impervious to antibiotics (Harrison et al., 2005a,b).

We have seen wide spread commercial deployment of MBAs over the past few decades, particularly Cu and Ag."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5609261/pdf/MBT2-10-1062.pdf

Who told you that copper is not used in hospitals? Virtually all of the electrical wiring in a hospital uses copper as the conductor. Most likely the reason why stainless steel is used in some tasks will be found by first specifying that task.

Oops.....but S E's posts covered the important issues very concisely. T Y to. S E

TO Anonymous: Scientists already determined why not to use Cu instead of SS. Hint: SS should own those properties that Cu cannot supply continuously.

S E's post #1 was powerful and brought forward compelling imformation.

I don't see the cost calculations including labor to keep the copper polished. Left to it's own devices, copper forms a patina very quickly and in contact with moisture turns rapidly to verdigris which is just plain yucky. On the plus side, the presence of corrosion shows that the surface has not been cleaned, but regular polishing is relatively labor intensive. Stainless steel depends on formation of a passivated surface for shininess which is effectively chemically neutral and not actively antimicrobial.

I'd look for another antimicrobial surface which doesn't tarnish.

First of all, I think we are talking about brass...

..."Antimicrobial copper-alloy touch surfaces. ... The surfaces of copper and its alloys, such as brass and bronze, are antimicrobial. They have an inherent ability to kill a wide range of harmful microbes relatively rapidly – often within two hours or less – and with a high degree of efficiency."...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_copper-alloy_touch_surfaces

I for one would rather have brass fixtures than have a superbug eat my legs off during a brief visit to the hospital..

..."The research also suggests that if touch surfaces are made with copper alloys, the reduced transmission of disease-causing organisms can reduce patient infections in hospital intensive care units (ICU) by as much as 58%.^[1][2] "...

I used to work for a major hospital in the country, where ALL door hardwares like knobs, handles and door skeleton keys, plates fixtures are made of copper alloys or brass..

Bed rails, head rails, old lamp fixtures and chandeliers, room dividers, bed tables and gurneys were also made out of the same materials...

Being the oldest hospital in the country, they were all removed and replaced due to major modernizations...

The hospital is now plague with a never ending infection control issues!

This is possibly an example of the logical fallacy characterised by the Latin tag "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" ("Following this, therefore because of this"). You cannot ascribe the plague of infection control issues solely to the removal of copper, ignoring other changing patterns such as the increased amount of orthopaedic surgery, the spreading of resistant organisms due to antibiotic misuse, the employment of less qualified staff and so on and so on.

That is true too, but you need to realize as well that all those hardwares are the very first things that every person, practitioners or not lay their hands on! Both IN and Out you pass and hold on those!

All the objects that are in the immediate vicinities of patients that are being touched both in coming and going to see the patients.. Regardless their hands are gloved or not, which are the main contributing factors why infections are transferred and spread in a facility!

It is very possible that infections can easily be contained in a room if those hardwares were left in place!

You for one should be aware how infections are actually being distributed around? As well as how they become resistant?

Our skin has many microbes that are not pathogens. Killing off all microbes may make us more susceptible to the ultra hearty microbes that survive everything we can throw at them.

My point is biology and medicine is a very complicated field. What works in one place at one time can make things worse for another individual in another scenario.

It is true. I just shared what was observed in the past that in looking back may have more merits...as far as infection control in an environment that supposedly sterile

That today is part of being discussed.

Oh dear. Throughout my professional career I have had to deal with patients who know more about medicine than their doctors, and it seems the trend continues. Please allow me to explain in a little more detail. As I have said before, doorknobs and bedrails are not in the habit of leaping off their fixings and engaging open wounds, whatever metal they are made of. The issue is with the hands of the attendants, a fact which was first made clear in the 1840s by Ignaz Semmelweiss. If a doctor or nurse does not wash his/her hands, or at least change gloves, between patients, the second patient is at risk of infection by the germs from the first. Take it from me: touching a copper doorknob is not a substitute for washing your hands.

Being a practitioner, you said it correctly and I agree! The key to the problems are those who knows and are very well familiar with those precautions, guidelines and protocols, being a part of their required and documented annual trainings. But being "specialists" they are also the very first to violate and ignore them Too!

Don't you realized that unless religiously enforced and practiced, adapted as an attitude and as a habit, All those protocols / guidelines, will just remain as is! And denials are the very first observed reactions from those people that I had personally reminded and noted in my 30+ years of experience /exposures being in that same environment as well!

Then why are you blethering on about the virtues of brass doorknobs?

I'm sorry, but no. There is no evidence at all that the doorknob/bedrail/etc material has any direct influence on the actual infection rate or on any other real measure of hospital outcome. There is also no reason to believe that it might, since there is again no evidence that touching copper rather than stainless steel magically cleanses the hands which are the prime cause of transmitted infection.

In other words, read the science first and shape your utterances accordingly. If you find evidence, produce it.

Therein lies the real root of the answer to the OP.

Even though copper does have some antimicrobial properties that stainless steel does not possess, there is no evidence copper surfaces instead of stainless steel surfaces reduces infection rates in a hospital. In addition, stainless steel is more durable and less expensive than copper.

You've been barking at the wrong tree! Re-read Post#40 my original comment..

The essential failure of your logic was noted in my immediate response in post #43. Your anecdote is not evidence of anything.

Exactly! It's just a comment, not even to you nor the OP...

That was why I said you're barking at the wrong tree..??

Infections are the only thing left behind....

It seems there is really a clear lack of understanding on what a hospital real environment is all about?

Where the air being circulated, anything and everything that are present, regardless whether they're physically touched or not, by just the mere presence contributes to the spread of infections!

Actually, hospital engineers understand this quite well. The consensus of opinion is that airborne transmission is not generally a problem (unless carers sneeze into an open wound) and filtering the air coming into the ward areas is a routine exercise. The one important exception is the orthopaedic operating theatre, which has a high-flow highly filtered airflow down onto the operating table, which, in combination with gowning, double gloving, and helmet wearing, is designed to keep all airborne germs out of the wound. This extreme arrangement is unnecessary for the other operating theatres and for the intensive care units and general ward areas.

I can appreciate your limited practice exposures as experienced in a hospital setting..

What I was relating to was based on 30+ years of daily exposures /experienced in a major US and world renown healthcare environment..

When the described environment was how it was back in the early 70s, while it was only a 1200 bed tertiary hospital!

just considering the magnitude of differences in settings and environment alone...

As an environmental engineer that worked in installing, maintaining and servicing A/C systems in a major hospital for many years, I can tell you that operating rooms are isolated with their own systems and filtering spec's....Every precaution is taken against contamination...nobody can enter the environment without suiting up...The temperature and humidity is very closely controlled...For the entire hospital there are 2 stage filtering systems, with the second stage being large rooms of bag filters that look like lungs continuously inhaling....

That is very true, especially in isolation rooms throughout the critical care areas.... There are also a required minimum number of air exchanges to be achieved within a certain period of time, aside from rooms being either a positive or a negative airflows..

I believe ventilation-wise, each critical intensive care units, including its stepdown units are individually separate /isolated with rest of the hospital floors.. For static controls, special humidity requirement are maintained in all oxygen-rich areas especially inside the operating suites...

..."Over the years many researchers have reported that copper and copper alloys can effectively be used as antimicrobial touch surfaces [5,38,39]. Pure copper can eliminate 99.9% of bacteria after one hour, while for 60% copper, two hours were required to achieve similar values of antibacterial activity. These results highlight the interest in developing alloys with high Cu content in order to eliminate bacteria fast enough for the application sought. However, the number of reported Cu-rich thin film alloys is scarce and most of the research is basically focused on the Cu90Ti10 [40,41,42] alloy."...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457048/

To the right of the page you will see a large number of studies over the years...

I agree with SE's post 32, in that the the copper alloy most likely to be used for touch surfaces is brass, although bronze is pretty common for quality door handles.

I have a set of antique fireplace tools with brass handles. These were purchased around 40 years ago, either at a yard sale or at an antique store. On the two tools that I use frequently, the handles are bright and shiny, with no cleaning beyond normal handling. On those that I don't use or only use rarely, the handles are still brass-colored, though much duller. They certainly don't have the dark patina associated with old copper left outdoors.

Furthermore, I have quite a few items of "pure" copper purchased or given to me in Chile over 50 years ago. The only ones that have developed patina are those that have been left outdoors as garden decorations. Only a few of the indoor objects have been polished occasionally (less than once a decade), and they are bright and shiny. The rest are still very clearly copper color, though not bright and shiny.

If you've ever observed an outdoor copper alloy that is frequently touched by people (such as handrails or certain parts of certain statues) They remain relatively bright and shiny, too.

In other words, no special effort is required to keep enough copper exposed to people's touch to perform the antimicrobial function. Those places where the alloy visibly oxidizes are those parts that aren't frequently touched by people, so they don't matter!

A very interesting, informative post on the true validity of this historic metal. 99.9% pure means something.

The purity of the metal is a function of recycling and repeated processing, it has nothing to do with the antibacterial properties....jus sayin'

Thank you, but I said "pure", in quotes for a reason. I know only a little about the purity of any of the items. Most of the copper easily available in Chile back then was electrolytically refined copper. I was fortunate to visit the refinery at Chuquicamata, one of the largest, and observe the process. Electrolytically refined copper typically has a purity an order of magnitude or two higher than your quoted "99.9%"

It is true that high purity is important for some uses of copper, but much copper has other metals added to give it strength and other desirable properties.

Just as pure gold is too soft to use in most jewelry, pure copper is too soft for many applications. Most of the copper I deal with currently is alloy 182: 99.1%Cu, 0.9% Cr. The addition of less than 1% of chromium makes it much stronger, for use in many welding contact purposes.

I wonder how much if any concern should be paid to open wounds being in contact with copper, copper alloys or any of their flaked off patinas. Remember, the hospital staff wants to kill off only potential pathogens and not any of the ailing patients.

Post #4 mentioned a mad surgeon who wanted instruments with copper blades, but it is difficult to see how doorknobs, bedrails, IV poles or bedrails could come into contact with open wounds.

It might even be true that copper is good for the tissues

Sorry but your reference to the "mad doctor" in my earlier post would imply that I was not clear in the respect that is owed to that surgeon.

He specialised in heart transplants and similar procedures during the early '80's in an institute that educated many of those now performing those operations. While working with him, we fitted over 50 external pacemakers and in all our surgery we never had a patient infection.

Maybe I wasn't clear, but his desire was that copper alloys be investigated. He advocated a return to those instruments. We understood that the cutting edges needed a degree of skill to achieve the necessary "edge".

He had his own set of instruments and was concerned that he could no longer get replacements with those alloy blades.

His major concern was that the relative inert SS replacements needed to be cleaned to eliminate pathogens while those copper allows actively destroyed them.

Having the room fittings also made of these alloys means that there is a reduced likelihood of transfer by visiting staff or family/friends who handle the door knobs, bed rails, handrails and so on. The action being that pathogens placed on those surfaces by contact would be inactivated essentially by the oxides of copper existing at the air interface.

I also note the recent availability of socks with copper impregnated into the thread to assist in solution of athletes foot and other similar concerns.

I appreciate your concerns for reputation. I have had the advantage of working with lots of surgeons, and so can put a comparator in place. Of two orthopaedic surgeons, for example, both recognised as having excellent results, one operated by eye alone in aligning the bones in a knee replacement, the other demanded all manner of expensive jigs which eventually came to litter my garage. Of two vascular surgeons, one took a morning and an afternoon to complete an aneurysm repair, and devised a sewing machine instrument to speed the process. This was in an academic institution. His colleague down the road completed an aneurysm repair in a couple of hours and added more cases to the list to fill the time. His results were good too.

You see, you are lacking in a comparator. The fact that copper-based instruments have not caught on speaks for itself.

We can agree to have different historical perspectives.

I suppose that my comparator is what else transpired from the same operating theater, same general equipment (ventilators and such) same prep team, same sterilisation unit for all instruments and same post surgical care team. The identifiable difference was that he had his preferred instrument pack when he operated.

I do concede bias in the observations as I was only supporting his surgical procedures as a visitor and was not involved in those other surgeons procedures.

All is well.

TGO Jpfalt: You got what I said in my first replay; copper oxides and anti-microbial function decays.

All metals are attacked/interact by oxygen since they perform different applications. So, if copper must interact with environment, then a protected copper or different metal (to resist corrosion) will not perform anti-microbial activity.

Function decays if you do not do your 'brightwork'. It's not labor intensive, it's a choice.

In a word... corrosion

Copper tarnishes with verdigris and has to be polished constantly and bacteria can grow on it. That's an added expense that hospitals and most companies don't want. Things don't live on Stainless Steel, that is why it is used in industrial kitchens. Stainless steel is also easier to work with. You have to solder copper and sometimes it doesn't seal.

What kind of work have you done that was easier in stainless steel than in copper? I certainly have very much the opposite experience!

I work for a company that makes entire machinery out of stainless steel.

I've machined parts from several kinds of SS and several different Cu alloys. I avoid SS whenever possible, because I find it so difficult to machine.

I'm not a welder, beyond spot welding. That IS easier in SS than Cu alloys. Soldering/brazing, definitely not.

Yes, I know machining it is different. Even though we have a machine shop, I usually farm out the stainless steel for machining. Especially when it comes to tapped holes on the end of shafts or in blocks. I prefer to let some other machine shop risk breaking a tap in the shaft.

..."MRSA can survive for more than twelve months on dry surfaces however it does prefer a warm moist environment like a wound or the nasal passages."..

Having the environment help control hospital acquired infections by design, is a smart approach....Pure copper can kill pathogens within an hour, what we need is a surface that kills within >5 minutes...and not only for hospitals, but all public areas and buildings...

"Natural and bioinspired nanostructured bactericidal surfaces"

..."Consequently, instead of killing bacteria chemically, several studies have explored alternative physical methods through the contact killing mechanism. These developments have in part been inspired by nature where several insects are known to have bactericidal surfaces that kill microbes coming in contact with them. The bactericidal effects of these surfaces are due to the presence of sharp nanostructures (nano-pillar shaped with diameter 50–250 nm, height 80–250 nm, and pitch 100–250 nm) which pierce into the bacterial cell wall upon contact or rupture the bacteria cell wall, thereby killing the bacteria. Such a physical bactericidal method has become an attractive approach to potentially tackle multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria [13]."...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001868616303542

Your informed research has brought forward a little talked about topic of nanostructure, and specifically cu nano structure. "Copper" is playing a very important role in our environment, not just in the hospital setting. A great movie I am reminded of is "fantastic voyage". Nano "robots" are already playing an important role in research. Thank you cr4 for responding in such a forward thinking way (as always)

correction <5 minutes....

https://phys.org/news/2018-01-material-surface-mimics-natural-antimicrobial.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299591358_Hydrophobic_coating_of_GaAs_surfaces_with_nanostructured_ZnO

I have seen many applications of copper in hospitals. Which applications are you questioning?