Eichhornia Crassipes as reducing agent for synthetizing Ag nanoparticles and its antimicrobial activity

The effects of Ag nanoparticles on microorganisms and the antimicrobial mechanism has recently been validated for different microbiological strains, as well as their cytotoxic effect in in vitro cellular models. In this work we report the synthesis of Ag nanoparticles using the extract of Eichhornia crassipes as reducing agent, and evaluated its antimicrobial activity with Escherichia coli. The morphology, size and inhibition properties of the nanoparticles as a function of the reduction time in the chemical synthesis were analyzed. The characterization was carried out by UV-Vis spectrophotometry and transmission electron microscopy. Nanoparticles with average diameters of 40 nm ± 10 nm were obtained and their antimicrobial activity with higher inhibition in Escherichia coli was recorded with the nanoparticle samples obtained at 120 min. These results suggest that Ag nanoparticles can be used as effective growth inhibitors in various microorganisms, making them applicable to various medical devices and antimicrobial control systems by modifying their concentration.