ABSTRACT
Due to the beneficial properties of silver, it is anticipated that the number of commercially available applications will keep growing during the next decade. In this study, 14 different commercial products that claim to contain solid silver were characterized by visual analysis, UV-VIS spectroscopy, inductive coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), scanning transmission electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (STEM-EDX), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). Moreover the variation between production batches-which has never been researched before-was investigated. All four techniques corroborated that some products were highly concentrated and contained spherically-shaped silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), while in others, no (solid) silver was detected or only irregularly-shaped silver particles with a high size polydispersity were present. For almost all products, a significant difference between the claimed and measured silver concentration was detected and a high variability between different production batches of the same product was observed. Our results show the need for a more rigorous approach regarding the manufacturing, labeling, and use of silver-containing products.
ABSTRACT
Although the production and stabilization of metal nanoparticles (MNPs) is well understood, the behavior of these MNPs (possible aggregation or disaggregation) when they are intentionally or unintentionally exposed to different environments is a factor that continues to be underrated or overlooked. A case study is performed to analyze the stability of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs)-one of the most frequently used MNPs with excellent antibacterial properties-within two bacterial growth media: a minimally defined medium (IDL) and an undefined complex medium (LB). Moreover, the effect of aging, size and stabilization mechanisms is considered. Results clearly indicate a strong aggregation when AgNPs are dispersed in IDL. Regarding LB, the 100 nm electrosterically stabilized AgNPs remain stable while all others aggregate. Moreover, a serious aging effect is observed for the 10 nm electrostatically stabilized AgNPs when added to LB: after aggregation a restabilization effect occurs over time. Generally, this study demonstrates that the aging, medium composition (environment), size and stabilization mechanism-rarely acknowledged as important factors in nanotoxicity studies-have a profound impact on the AgNPs stabilization and should gain more attention in scientific research.
ABSTRACT
Numerous studies have investigated the antibacterial effect of both silver ions and silver nanomaterials on a large diversity of environmentally and clinically relevant bacteria. However, contradictory results are reported in which inhibition concentrations were varying by a 10-fold. This study investigated whether this variance in results could be attributed to the difference in experimental conditions, especially the microbial growth medium. B. subtilis was exposed to 500 µg L-1 Ag+ in liquid growth media with different concentrations of some commonly used media components: tryptone, yeast extract, Cl-, and S2-. The toxic effect was investigated by means of three complementary analysis techniques: (i) analyzing the growth curves obtained by optical density measurements, (ii) using flow cytometry, and (iii) by transmission electron microscopy. The silver ion toxicity towards B. subtilis decreased as more tryptone, yeast extract, or S2- was present. This study demonstrates that the medium composition, rarely acknowledged as an important experimental factor in bacterial toxicity studies, has a profound impact on the observed silver toxicity towards B. subtilis.
