Abstract
Drug resistance of pathogenic microorganisms has become a global public health problem, which has prompted the development of new materials with antimicrobial properties. In this context, antimicrobial nanohybrids are an alternative due to their synergistic properties. In this study, we used an environmentally friendly one-step approach to synthesize graphene oxide (GO) decorated with silver nanoparticles (GO–AgNPs). By this process, spherical AgNPs of average size less than 4 nm homogeneously distributed on the surface of the partially reduced GO can be generated in the absence of any stabilizing agent, only with ascorbic acid (L-AA) as a reducing agent and AgNO3 as a metal precursor. The size of the AgNPs can be controlled by the AgNO3 concentration and temperature. Smaller AgNPs are obtained at lower concentrations of the silver precursor and lower temperatures. The antimicrobial properties of nanohybrids against Gram-negative bacteria Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus, and the yeast Candida albicans were found to be concentration- and time-dependent. C. albicans and S. aureus showed the highest susceptibility to GO–AgNPs. These nanohybrids can be used as nanofillers in polymer nanocomposites to develop materials with antimicrobial activity for applications in different areas, and another potential application could be cancer therapeutic agents.
Highlights
The emergence of nanotechnology has led to the development of nanomaterials, including inorganic nanoparticles with antimicrobial properties, such as silver nanoparticles (AgNPs)
The Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations (MICs) corresponds to the concentration of the compound that resulted in an absorbance reduction of 50% or greater with respect to the absorbance found in the wells of the growth control
The antimicrobial activity of graphene oxide (GO) and GO–AgNP nanohybrids was analyzed by means of the MIC determination and the microbial growth kinetics assay of E. coli ATCC 25922, P. aeruginosa ATCC 27853, S. aureus ATCC 25923, and C. albicans SC5314
Summary
The emergence of nanotechnology has led to the development of nanomaterials, including inorganic nanoparticles with antimicrobial properties, such as silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). Several studies have reported that the antimicrobial activity of AgNPs is both size and shape dependent [7,9,10]. The synergistic properties of these hybrid materials have proven to be useful in a variety of applications (electronics, catalysis, electrochemical biosensing, drug delivery, and antimicrobial agents) [24,25,26,27,28,29] Both graphene and AgNPs have been combined with polymer matrices to develop antimicrobial materials [30]. Graphene oxide-silver nanoparticle nanohybrids (GO–AgNPs) were synthesized via a one-step environmentally friendly approach using an aqueous dispersion of GO, AgNO3 as a metal precursor, and ascorbic acid as a green reductant, without any stabilizing agent.
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