Hydrothermal synthesis of Ag nanoparticles on the nanocellulose and their antibacterial study

Abstract A facile hydrothermal method was developed to synthesize Ag nanoparticle on the nanocellulose in aqueous solutions in which the nanocellulose acts as the reducing agent and stabilizer. The obtained Ag nanoparticles-nanocellulose nanocomposites were characterized by UV–Vis, FTIR, TEM, AFM and XRD measurements. The TEM and AFM observation results indicated that the synthesized silver nanoparticles are spherical and randomly distributed on the nanocellulose fibrils. The FTIR results confirmed that the nanocellulose is associated with the Ag nanoparticles. XRD measurements revealed that the Ag nanoparticles are highly crystalline. The antibacterial activity of the Ag nanoparticles-nanocellulose nanocomposites against Gram-positive bacteria, Gram-negative bacteria and fungus was evaluated. The results indicated that the silver nanoparticles-nanocellulose have high bactericidal efficiency against both bacteria and fungus.