Open Access Conference Proceedings

The environmentally friendly preparation of silver nanoparticles was proposed for the production of antibacterial non-woven textile used in water filtration. The silver nanoparticles were prepared by chemical reduction of silver nitrate using two environmentally friendly reducing agents, such as fructose or ascorbic acid. For comparison also commonly used reducing agent - sodium borohydride was used. The silver nanoparticles in various size and yield were produced by immersion of the plasma pre-treated polypropylene (PP) non-woven textile in the colloidal solutions for different periods (35, 45 and 135 min). The morphology of the silver nanoparticles was characterized by SEM and EDX analysis. Additionally, the antibacterial activity of the silver decorated PP non-woven textile was evaluated by an agar diffusion test using both Gram-positive Staphylococcus Aureus and Gram-negative Escherichia coli. The results suggest that the type of the reducing agent has major effect both on the morphology of silver nanoparticles and the antibacterial activity.

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