A novel method of continuous fabrication of aqueous dispersions of silver nanoparticles
Аннотация
The paper deals with a novel method of preparing silver nanoparticles suspended in aqueous solution using cellulose fibres, which does not involve any chemical surfactants. The synthesised nanoparticles had crystalline structure and substantially smaller size, about 2-8 nm during the first few days after the synthesis, and grew slowly over the next ten days, acquiring the size of 6-20 nm. Dependences of size and mass concentration of nanoparticles on temperature, concentration of Ag+-ions, flow rate of initial solution through cellulose, exposure after reducing, and structure of nanoparticles have been studied. The method based on the use of cellulose fibres can be employed for continuous fabrication of aqueous dispersions of silver nanoparticles. The tests conducted have demonstrated that synthesised colloidal dispersions show a pronounced antibacterial effect, as evidenced by low minimum inhibitory concentration values obtained for Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Bacillus subtilis cultures.