MATERIALS BASED ON SILVER NANOPARTICLES WITH HIGH ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY. METHOD OF PREPARATION - Banco de Patentes

This invention, which is the subject of the patent presented jointly by researchers from the Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar), the Universitat Jaume I de Castelló (UJI) and Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) addresses the formation of silver nanoparticles from a silver salt (Figure 1), where a reduction process generates a composite material formed by this silver salt with segregation of nanoparticles of metallic silver on its surface. This segregation is achieved by irradiating the precursor material with a high-energy electron beam (generated in an electron microscope) or by irradiation with a femtosecond laser (Figure 2).
In this way, the antimicrobial activity of the treated salt improves remarkably with respect to the non-irradiated salt. The precursor silver salt is an α-silver tungstate with a cubic morphology synthesised by a precipitation reaction modified by a surfactant and is the one that offers the greatest antimicrobial activity.