Abstract

Study of Bacterial Sensitivity to Ag-TiO2 Nanoparticles

Tessy M. Lopez Goerne, Mayra A. Alvarez Lemus, Verónica Angeles Morales, Esteban Gómez López and Patricia Castillo Ocampo

Background: Silver has been widely used for disinfection because of its well known antibacterial properties.
Recently, silver nanoparticles have shown higher activity killing and inhibiting bacterial reproduction. In the present work we obtained silver nanoparticles highly dispersed over nanostructured titania in order to enhance bacterial sensitivity.
Materials and methods: Four different Titania-based nanoparticles were synthesized by the Sol-Gel process using Ag2SO4, AgCl, AgNO3 and CH3COOAg as silver precursor. All the materials were characterized by FTIR, UV-Vis and XPS, TEM microscopy, EDS, also BET and DRX analysis were carried out.
Results: Amorphous materials were apparently obtained. Ag-TiO2 nanoparticles were tested against several Gramnegative and Gram-positive bacteria including enterophatogenic Escherichia coli and highly resistant strains such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and they showed sensibility in most of cases.
Conclusions: Supported silver nanoparticles represent a suitable way to obtain highly dispersed active silver over higher surface area. This approach allows it use as efficient bactericide since lower silver amount can be employed.