Photo: Courtesy of Nippon Paint

Nippon Paint has announced the commercial launch of its first antiviral paint, Nippon Paint's Antivirus Kids Paint, in China in December 2020. The newly launched product is Asia's first antiviral children's paint using Corning Guardiant™, a novel antimicrobial paint additive containing copper ions.

Last month Corning announced breakthrough test results demonstrating that paints formulated with Corning Guardiant™ showed a 99.9 percent kill of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on coated surfaces in less than two hours. Surfaces coated with Nippon Paint's Antivirus Kids Paint also showed a greater than 99.9 percent kill of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These tests were carried out in compliance with rigorous test protocols approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency.  

In March, before the antiviral paint product was commercially available, the two companies joined to donate the first batches of Nippon Paint's Antivirus Kids Paint tested in US independent labs to four Chinese hospitals designated by the department of commerce of Hubei province.  

Corning Guardiant™ is the core technology behind Nippon Paint's Antivirus Kids Paint. Copper ions in Corning Guardiant™, when incorporated into the antiviral paint, create an effective defense against coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and 229E on the coated surfaces by either destroying viral envelopes to render them dysfunctional or non-infectious, or tampering with genetic materials so that the virus cannot reproduce.

"Nippon Paint's Antivirus Kids Paint creates a surface with in-built antimicrobial function, adding another layer of sustained protection to temporary disinfection measures such as liquid disinfectants." Joydeep Lahiri, division vice president and program director, Specialty Surfaces, Corning said.

Apart from killing bacteria and viruses, Nippon Paint's Antivirus Kids Paint can eliminate formaldehyde across indoor environments, and its stain resistance meets the level-1 anti-pollution standard. Nippon Paint's Antivirus Kids Paint guarantees healthy indoor air for users with proven indoor air quality improvement through rigorous tests certified by TÜV and the GREENGUARD Gold Certification Standard and A+ Standard.

Eric Chung, president of Nippon Paint China, said that "as the cornerstone for enterprise development, technological innovation has always been what drives Nippon Paint to push the limits of the industry, and tap our potential to fulfill our mission to refresh and bring wonder to living space."