Incorporation of silver nanoparticles on textile materials by an aqueous procedure

A successful procedure for the in situ synthesis of silver nanoparticles by chemical reduction of a silver salt on cotton and wool textiles is reported herein. The synthesis can be advantageously performed in an aqueous system when compared with an ethanolic system. SEM studies confirmed the presence of silver nanoparticles on the treated textiles, and elemental analysis by ICP revealed that, for the aqueous system, up to 3 and 4 mg of silver per gram were deposited per gram of cotton and wool fabric, respectively. This represented an increase of up to 16-fold for cotton and 3-fold for wool compared with the ethanolic system. Thus, the difference between the aqueous and ethanolic systems was more evident for cotton, albeit more silver was deposited on wool samples in all conditions. An increase in the amount of reducing agent present resulted in more silver being deposited on the textiles when using an aqueous system. The use of water presents a great advantage for possible scale-up of the method. This simple method can be applied to produce textiles for biomedical applications or presenting conductive properties.