Silver Doped ZnO Nanoparticles for Antimicrobial Activity and Wound Healing Application

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 freeze- gelation 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.