New Antivirals and Antibacterials Based on Silver Nanoparticles

Abstract

The rediscovery of the medical uses of silver provides another noticeable example, this time at the interface of chemistry and medicine, of the real (and nonlinear) progress of scientific research. Several new silver-based antimicrobial products have thus been commercialized in the last two decades. Next-generation antibacterials and antivirals of broad scope, low toxicity and affordable cost, we argue in this study, will be based on microencapsulated Ag nanoparticles.

Keywords: antibacterial agents; antiviral agents; microencapsulation; nanoparticles; silver; sol-gel.

Figure 1

TEM (bright background) and STEM (dark background) of P. aeruginosa before (a and d) and after (b, c and e) treatment with silver; the black (b) and white (e) granules represent silver deposition which account for the zombies biocidal action [Reproduced from ref. [13], under Creative Commons 4.0 Licence].

Figure 2

Comparison between the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) of the reference AgNPs and the optimized AgNPs. [Reproduced from ref. [28], under Creative Commons 4.0 Licence].