Scientists at the Agricultural Research Service's (ARS)
The amount of silver nanoparticles required to kill bacteria is extremely small, which makes them efficient and cost effective to use. Moreover, the new method, developed by ARS materials engineer Sunghyun Nam and her colleagues, is inexpensive and eco-friendly.
Typically, silver nanoparticles—particles that are 1 to 100 nanometers in diameter—are grown in a bulk chemical solution. In the new technology, the silver nanoparticles are produced within the cotton fibers, making their application more effective and affordable.
Silver nanoparticles slowly release silver ions that can kill more than 600 kinds of bacteria, including E. coli, says Nam, who works in the SRRC Cotton Chemistry and Utilization Research Unit. The problem has been that currently available methods could only apply silver nanoparticles to the surface of fibers, where they would wash away.
"Our new process grows and traps the silver nanoparticles inside cotton fibers," Nam says. "They release their silver ions very slowly, killing bacteria for a long time. Our process also allows us to produce extremely small nanoparticles, about 12 nanometers in diameter." One nanometer is a billionth of a meter. For example, a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. The extremely small size of the silver nanoparticles results in a larger surface area, which increases the number of silver ions coming into contact with bacteria.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-bacteria-nanoparticle-cotton-fibers.html#jCp
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