Bactericidal Silver Nanoparticles by Atmospheric Pressure Solution Plasma Processing
Janith Weerasinghe, Wenshao Li, Rusen Zhou, Renwu Zhou, Alexander Gissibl, Prashant Sonar, Robert Speight, Krasimir Vasilev, Kostya Ostrikov
Abstract
Silver nanoparticles have applications in plasmonics, medicine, catalysis and electronics. We report a simple, cost-effective, facile and reproducible technique to synthesise silver nanoparticles via plasma-induced non-equilibrium liquid chemistry with the absence of a chemical reducing agent. Silver nanoparticles with tuneable sizes from 5.4 to 17.8 nm are synthesised and characterised using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and other analytic techniques. A mechanism for silver nanoparticle formation is also proposed. The antibacterial activity of the silver nanoparticles was investigated with gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The inhibition of both bacteria types was observed. This is a promising alternative method for the instant synthesis of silver nanoparticles, instead of the conventional chemical reduction route, for numerous applications.