{"doi":"10.1101/2020.08.29.271015","title":"Silicon Nitride Inactivates SARS-CoV-2 <i>in vitro</i>","abstract":"ABSTRACT Introduction Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, remains viable and therefore potentially infectious on several materials. One strategy to discourage the fomite-mediated spread of COVID-19 is the development of materials whose surface chemistry can spontaneously inactivate SARS-CoV-2. Silicon nitride (Si 3 N 4 ), a material used in spine fusion surgery, is one such candidate because it has been shown to inactivate several bacterial species and viral strains. This study hypothesized that contact with Si 3 N 4 would inactivate SARS-CoV-2, while mammalian cells would remain unaffected. Materials SARS-CoV-2 virions (2×10 4 PFU/mL diluted in growth media) were exposed to 5, 10, 15, and 20% (w/v) of an aqueous suspension of sintered Si 3 N 4 particles for durations of 1, 5, and 10 minutes, respectively. Before exposure to the virus, cytotoxicity testing of Si 3 N 4 alone was assessed in Vero cells at 24 and 48 hour post-exposure times. Following each exposure to Si 3 N 4 , the remaining infectious virus was quantitated by plaque assay. Results Vero cell viability increased at 5% and 10% (w/v) concentrations of Si 3 N 4 at exposure times up to 10 minutes, and there was only minimal impact on cell health and viability up to 20% (w/v). However, the SARS-CoV-2 titers were markedly reduced when exposed to all concentrations of Si 3 N 4 ; the reduction in viral titers was between 85% - 99.6%, depending on the dose and duration of exposure. Conclusions Si 3 N 4 was non-toxic to the Vero cells while showing strong antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. The viricidal effect increased with increasing concentrations of Si 3 N 4 and longer duration of exposure. Surface treatment strategies based on Si 3 N 4 may offer novel methods to discourage SARS-CoV-2 persistence and infectivity on surfaces and discourage the spread of COVID-19.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":122266,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9532,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":563984,"name":"Rafaela Flur","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":124326,"name":"Kylene Kehn-Hall","orcid":"0000-0001-8036-7213","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":563184,"name":"Bryan J. McEntire","orcid":"0000-0002-7612-9789","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":563185,"name":"B. Sonny Bal","orcid":"0000-0002-9615-8632","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":563186,"name":"Ryan M. Bock","orcid":"0000-0002-3422-7751","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":125487,"name":"Caitlin Woodson","orcid":"0000-0002-8012-5377","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":45,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:14:51.076430Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}