Due to their optical and antimicrobial properties, silver nanoparticles are being used in an increasing number of commercial and medical applications. Since their effect on the environment and living organisms is only partially known, probing their behavior in various solution conditions is important. The goal of our work is to study the interaction of amino acids with the nanoparticles and examine their antimicrobial effects on Escherichia coli. We have found that if an amino acid adsorbs to the nanoparticle's surface, they tend to aggregate due to hydrogen bonding of the carboxylate and a-amino groups. We are undertaking pH studies of these species and probing the effect of amino acid derivatives to determine if we can manipulate the surface charge present on the nanoparticles and prohibit this aggregation. Once this is accomplished, we intend to investigate their antimicrobial properties by measuring the optical density as a function of time.

Influence of amino acids with silver nanoparticles and their antimicrobial properties against Escherichia coli

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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