For more than 50 years dequalinium chloride has been used successfully as an antiseptic drug and disinfectant, particularly for clinical purposes. Given the success of dequalinium chloride, several series of mono- and bisquaternary ammonium compounds have been designed and reported to have improved antimicrobial activity. Furthermore, many of them exhibit high activity against mycobacteria and ...

In 1916 Jacobs, Heidelberger, and coworkers at the Rockefeller Institute reported the discovery of a new class of synthetic compounds which possessed potent bactelicidal properties. By reacting hexamethylenetetramine with a large variety of substituted benzylor alkyl-halides, nujmerous quaternary salts of this base were obtained. It was observed that most of these salts had pronounced bacterici...

We have created a novel quaternary ammonium silane, K21 through sol-gel chemistry, using an ethoxylated version of an organosilane quaternary ammonium compound and TetraEthyl Ortho Silicate (TEOS) as precursors. Previous studies using the precursor molecule quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) and a methacryloxy version of K21, primarily designed for use in dental healthcare, have shown inhibit...

Chitosan (CS) is a linear polysaccharide with good biodegradability, biocompatibility and antimicrobial activity, which makes it potentially useful for biomedical applications, including an antimicrobial agent either alone or blended with other polymers. However, the poor solubility of CS in most solvents at neutral or high pH substantially limits its use. Quaternary ammonium CS, which was prep...

Quaternary ammonium compounds are widely used as antiseptic and disinfectant. It is been a concern that their widespread use will lead to an increase of environmental problems, therefore the development biodegradable surfactants necessary. The present research aimed at design novel amphiphilic molecules with similar properties those already known but more biodegradable. Based on benzalkonium ch...

A series of bis-pyridinium quaternary ammonium salts (bis-PyQAs) with different aryl and heteroaryl moieties were synthesized and their antimicrobial activity investigated. The inhibition effect of the compounds was evaluated against bacteria, molds and yeasts; the activities were expressed as the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC). The relationships between the structure descriptors (logP...

Inactivation of germicidal activity by hard water has been reported by a number of investigators (Armbruster and Ridenour, 1949; Dvorkovitz and Crocker, 1950; Mueller and Seeley, 1951; Chambers et al., 1955). Both synthetic and natural hard waters have been studied in attempts to determine more precisely the characteristics of inactivating systems. In general, it appears that the interference i...

Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) are among the most commonly used disinfectants. There has been concern that their widespread use will lead to the development of resistant organisms, and it has been suggested that limits should be place on their use. While increases in tolerance to QACs have been observed, there is no clear evidence to support the development of resistance to QACs. Since ef...