Sodium alginate stabilized silver nanoparticles–silica nanohybrid and their antibacterial characteristics

Due to the problem of resistance of many infectious agents to the usual treatments, this study addresses the ways of obtaining and using new sodium alginate stabilized-silver/mesoporous silica (Na-Alg-s-AgNPs@SiO₂) nanohybrid as antimicrobial agents. Capping AgNPs with a shell of mesoporous SiO₂ is a system to build the increase biocompatibility of AgNPs. In this work, we report a simple and green way to deal with setting up a uniform sodium alginate–stabilized silver nanoparticles embedded mesoporous silica (Na-Alg-s-AgNPs@SiO₂ nanohybrid). The synthesized nanocomposite was characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra, and ultraviolet-visible (UV–vis) absorption spectra, which exhibited that AgNPs with average of size of ∼7 nm were consistently and compactly deposited in the nanocomposite. The nanohybrid demonstrated excellent antibacterial activity against both Gram negative (−ve) and Gram positive (+ve) bacteria. Thus, the developed Na-Alg-s-AgNPs@SiO₂ nanohybrid has a potential to be used for various antibacterial applications in biotechnology and biomedical fields.