Abstract:
Metallic nanoparticles are well known for their biomedical applications including
antimicrobial activity and wound dressing materials due to large surface to volume ratio
and other chemical properties. In this work, silver doped zinc oxide (Ag-ZnO)
nanoparticles containing chitosan-based porous membranes were prepared by the freezegelation method. Hydrogel membranes were prepared using the blending of natural
polymers and loading metallic nanoparticles as an antibacterial agent. The different
membranes were prepared using the different concentrations of metallic nanoparticles by
the freeze-gelation process, during this process Triethyl Orthoformate (TEOF) used as a
cross-linker agent. This different concentration of membranes were tested for bactericidal
potential using the disk diffusion method. Further, swelling studies of these membranes
were performed in PBS solutions. The presence of Ag-ZnO NPs were confirmed by the
scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. The Fourier Transform Infrared
Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis confirmed the presence of the chitosan functional group. All
these experiments confirmed that these membranes are safe to use for wound dressing
material and other biomedical applications.