The antibacterial activity of Ag nanoparticles in MCM-41 and Fe3O4 porous materials

Noble metal nanoparticles due to their excellent physicochemical properties have been used in biological application. Directly using silver nanoparticles in drinking water or other liquids might bring some potential risk and because of that using a template is necessary. Both Ag@porous Fe3O4 and Ag@MCM-41 were synthesized by hydrothermal method and characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM and BET. XRD patterns results indicated that Ag nanoparticles (NPs) incorporated in MCM-41 and Fe3O4 samples. TEM images of Ag core @ Fe3O4 shell showed that Ag NPs with diameter size 135 nm was rounded with Fe3O4 shell with diameter size 44 nm. Ag NPs incorporated in MCM-41 with average crystal size 12 nm. However both Ag@porous Fe3O4 and Ag@MCM-41 showed great antibacterial activity for Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria but there was some differences in amount of loading of silver ions.