By IDSE News Staff
Wood has natural antiviral properties that can reduce the time viruses persist on its surface, and some species of wood are more effective than others at reducing infectivity.
Enveloped viruses, like SARS-CoV-2, can live up to five days on surfaces; non-enveloped viruses, including enteroviruses, can live for weeks, in some cases even if the surfaces are disinfected.
Previous studies have shown that wood has antibacterial and antifungal properties, making it an ideal material for cutting boards. However, wood's ability to inactivate viruses has yet to be explored, which is what Varpu Marjomäki, PhD, and colleagues sought to do.
The researchers looked at how long enveloped and non-enveloped viruses remained infectious on the surfaces of six types of wood: Scots pine, silver birch, gray alder, eucalyptus, pedunculate oak and Norway spruce (ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 2024;16[23]:29621-29633).
To determine viral activity, they flushed a wood sample’s surface with a liquid solution at different times and then cultured the samples. After incubating the cells with the solution, they measured the number of infected cells.
Results from their demonstrations with an enveloped coronavirus showed that pine, spruce, birch and alder need one hour to completely reduce the virus’s ability to infect cells, with eucalyptus and oak needing two hours. Pine had the fastest onset of antiviral activity, beginning after five minutes. Spruce showed a sharp drop in infectivity after 10 minutes.
For a non-enveloped enterovirus, the researchers found that incubation on oak and spruce surfaces resulted in a loss of infectivity within about an hour, with oak having an onset time of 7.5 minutes and spruce after 60 minutes. Pine, birch and eucalyptus reduced the virus’s infectivity after four hours, and alder showed no antiviral effect.
Based on their study data, the researchers concluded that the chemical composition of a wood’s surface is primarily responsible for its antiviral functionality. Although they could not determine the mechanism of action for the reductions in this study, the researchers said the findings point to wood as a promising candidate for sustainable, natural antiviral materials.
The authors received funding from the Research Council of Finland and the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation.
