Green synthesis and characterisations of antibacterial silver-polyvinyl alcohol nanocomposite films for wound dressing

Green synthesis and characterisations of silver-polyvinyl alcohol nanocomposite films for possible environmental and biomedical applications such as wound dressing have been investigated. The synthesis was carried out in water, in an environmentally-friendly solvent using β-D-glucose as a reducing agent and in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a bio-friendly polymer. The green synthesis approaches have advantages over conventional methods involving chemical agents associated with environmental toxicity. The formation of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and UV-visible spectroscopy. The antimicrobial activity of the synthesised Ag-PVA nanocomposite materials against strains of different bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Enterobacter cloacae, Klebsiella spp., Salmonella typhi and Staphylococcus aureus was studied.