Silicon-based Antibacterial Material Of Robust And High Antibacterial Activity

With the increasing number of infectious diseases caused by different pathogenicbacteria, the studies are orientating towards development of new and effectiveantibacterial materials. In the past decade, many kinds of materials have been developedas novel kinds of antibacterial materials. Among them, AgNPs are of particular interestdue to their strong antimicrobial activity toward a broad spectrum of bacteria, virus, andfungi. While free AgNPs are potentially high-quality antibacterial candidates, theygenerally possess poor stability and are prone to be aggregated in aqueous phases,leading to loss of antibacterial activity and hampering their practical applications.Various substrates have been employed to prevent AgNP aggregation by the formationof nanocomposites. While such AgNP-embedded/coated substrates effectively preventAgNP aggregation and enhance the antibacterial activity, they often require complexand tedious preparation procedures with high cost. Here, we present a kind ofsilicon-based antibacterial material made of silver nanoparticle (AgNP)-decoratedsilicon wafers (AgNP@Si), which is facilely and rapidly (~30min) synthesized via aone-step reaction. Significantly, such a resultant silicon-based antibacterial materialfeatures stable and high antibacterial activity, preserving99%antibacterial efficiencyagainst E. coli during30day storage.