COSMOS MAGAZINE

Goji berries make silver nanoparticles for high-tech medical materials

By Ellen Phiddian

Scientists have found a way to make antibacterial silver nanoparticles, with goji berries. They say their method is a simple and more sustainable way to make the useful materials.

Silver-based particles on the scale of nanometres – or silver nanoparticles – are used in medicines, cosmetics and the food industry, and are the subject of a lot of excitement from nanotechnologists. They have properties that make them easy to manipulate and work with in nanotechnology research, and they also have high antibacterial activity.

Silver nanoparticles are responsible for disrupting the cell membrane structure, which can generate reactive oxygen species used for inhibiting bacterial growth.

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Lead author Kamran Alam, from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.

Researchers have been hunting for ways to make silver nanoparticles more easily, safely, and sustainably. Alam and colleagues found that store-bought goji berries did the trick.

The team dried goji berries, then ground them up and filtered them to get an extract filled with the reducing and stabilising agents needed to make silver nanoparticles.

They added silver nitrate to the extract, which reacted with the goji berry solution and produced silver nanoparticles.

“This is a simple and straightforward synthesis method which does not need additional chemicals or complex equipment and can be scaled up for industrial applications,” says Alam.

cosmosmagazine.com 

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