Facile deposition of biogenic silver nanoparticles on porous alumina discs, an efficient antimicrobial, antibiofilm, and antifouling strategy for functional contact surfaces

Abstract

Surface modification is an emerging strategy for the design of contact materials. Fabricated alumina discs were functionalized by deposition of biogenic silver nanoparticles. The surfaces were characterized for physico-chemical, antibacterial and antibiofilm properties against microbial pathogens. The surface demonstrated improved hydrophobicity and a surface silver nanoparticle content of 6.4 w%. A reduction of more than 99.9% in CFU mL⁻ⁱ was observed against the Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria tested, with >90% reduction of the fungal isolate. After 4 h, microbial adhesion was reduced by >99.9 and 90% for Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively. Scanning electron micrographs further revealed a biofilm reduction. Cell viability tests indicated a bioincompatibility higher than 80% with Caco-2 and HaCaT cell lines after 48 h contact. The results suggest that deposition of biogenic silver nanoparticles on the surface of contact materials could be employed as a strategy to prevent biofilm formation.

Graphical Abstract

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Assoc. Prof. Dr Nantakan Muensit, (Director, Centre of Excellence in Nanotechnology for Energy, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand) for helping with the wettability analysis.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Research Council of Thailand and Postdoctoral Fellowship, Prince of Songkla University.