Prospects of Nanostructure Materials and Their Composites as Antimicrobial Agents.

Anupriya Baranwal,Pradeep Kumar,Vivek K Bajpai,Pawan K Maurya,Ananya Srivastava,Pranjal Chandra

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2018.00422

Abstract

Nanostructured materials (NSMs) have increasingly been used as a substitute for antibiotics and additives in various products to impart microbicidal effect. In particular, use of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) has garnered huge researchers' attention as potent bactericidal agent due to the inherent antimicrobial property of the silver metal. Moreover, other nanomaterials (carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, graphene, chitosan, etc.) have also been studied for their antimicrobial effects in order ensure their application in widespread domains. The present review exclusively emphasizes on materials that possess antimicrobial activity in nanoscale range and describes their various modes of antimicrobial action. It also entails broad classification of NSMs along with their application in various fields. For instance, use of AgNPs in consumer products, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in drug delivery. Likewise, use of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) and titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2-NPs) as additives in consumer merchandises and nanoscale chitosan (NCH) in medical products and wastewater treatment. Furthermore, this review briefly discusses the current scenario of antimicrobial nanostructured materials (aNSMs), limitations of current research and their future prospects. To put various perceptive insights on the recent advancements of such antimicrobials, an extended table is incorporated, which describes effect of NSMs of different dimensions on test microorganisms along with their potential widespread applications.

Highlights

Microbial contamination even today is amongst primal causes of morbidity and mortality across the globe
We have presented a broad classification of Nanostructured materials (NSMs) produced via. different synthetic approaches along with an overview of the nanomaterials which possess antimicrobial activity
Owing to exclusive surface properties, graphene-based materials like oxides, reduced oxides, and nanocomposites have caught researchers’ attention for their ability to act as antimicrobial agent (Zhu et al, 2017; Jilani et al, 2018); only limited number of reports are available in this regard

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Microbial contamination even today is amongst primal causes of morbidity and mortality across the globe. Have found their usage in widespread domains of consumer products, food safety, agricultural products, crop protection, and industrial processes (waste water treatment, architectural/construction material, etc.) Owing to exclusive surface properties, graphene-based materials like oxides, reduced oxides (rGO), and nanocomposites have caught researchers’ attention for their ability to act as antimicrobial agent (Zhu et al, 2017; Jilani et al, 2018); only limited number of reports are available in this regard The mechanism behind their microbicidal activity is mostly accredited to “sheet effect” (Ocsoy et al, 2017), cell membrane dysfunction, and oxidative stress inside the cell (Liu et al, 2011). They have been studied for their application as construction material to impart crucial benefits

LIMITATIONS

CONCLUSIONS