Biofilms are present in virtually all chronic wounds and contribute to the delay of wound healing. Biofilms are communities of bacterial and/or fungal cells embedded in an extracellular polymeric substance. Conventional treatment methods utilizing topical applications or systemic delivery of antibiotics are often inadequate because biofilms are inherently resistant to most of these approaches since the majority of antibiotics are active against metabolically-active, but not dormant, cells. The present study examines a new technology that can simultaneously eradicate biofilms on the wound surface and promote wound healing.

The electrochemical scaffold (e-scaffold) is a platform technology that allows controlled, continuous electrochemical production of low concentrations of biocides. The proposed novel e-scaffold consists of a three-electrode system, the working and counter electrodes are made of flexible carbon fabric, are accompanied by a Ag/AgCl reference electrode, controlled using a custom potentiostat. The e-scaffold works by electrochemically oxidizing chloride ions on the working electrode to chlorine gas when a constant potential of 1.5 V_Ag/AgCl is applied, and produces hypochlorous acid via chlorine dissolution. A phosphate buffer saline solution is added to the e-scaffold to provide chloride ions. While e-scaffold effectiveness in eradicating bacterial and antibiotic resistant bacterial biofilms was demonstrated in previous studies, its effectiveness against fungal biofilms has not been demonstrated. The goal of this work is to demonstrate the efficacy of the e-scaffold against in vitro Candida albicans biofilm.

Fungal biofilms, such as C. albicans, differ from bacterial biofilms because fungal cells are eukaryotic cells and polymorphic, making fungal biofilms difficult to treat. After treating the C. albicans biofilm in an in vitro model with electrochemically produced hypochlorous acid using e-scaffold for 24 hours, the biofilm was completely eradicated. The results suggest that the electrochemical scaffold is a viable, new technology that can simultaneously eradicate antibiotic resistant fungal biofilms from the surfaces.