Plastic with antibacterial properties: silicon nanoparticles

In news;
The success of the silicon nanoparticles embedded in the soil has now been achieved in the spread of plastic, which can also be used to create new antimicrobial films, filaments and other plastic materials.

 

Important fact:

Over 99% of antibacterial activities have been observed against normal bacterial pathogens such as Escherchia coli and Staphylococcus aureus in silver nanoparticle-embedded plastics.

In this research, about 10 nanometers in size of silver nanoparticles were deposited on mud particles of approximately 200-300 nanometers.

Researchers used an inorganic soil found in the process called volcanic sites called Montmorelionite in this process.

The clay and silver compound in which 10% of the silver was present was loaded using high-density polyethylene plastic using the melt compounding method.

After this he converted the newly formed silver-clay plastic nanocomocytes into films, filaments and examined these molded and antibacterial properties in the sample.

Films and filaments display high activity compared to plastic molded.

The team also tried other metal ions like zinc and copper instead of silver.

The silver content of these nanocomosite plastics is very low, so there is no toxicity for human cells.

 

Source: The Hindu and Indian Express