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The influence of nanoscopically thin silver films on bacterial viability and attachment

  • Applied Microbial and Cell Physiology
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Abstract

The physicochemical and bactericidal properties of thin silver films have been analysed. Silver films of 3 and 150 nm thicknesses were fabricated using a magnetron sputtering thin-film deposition system. X-ray photoelectron and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy analyses confirmed that the resulting surfaces were homogeneous, and that silver was the most abundant element present on both surfaces, being 45 and 53 at.% on the 3- and 150-nm films, respectively. Inductively coupled plasma time of flight mass spectroscopy (ICP-TOF-MS) was used to measure the concentration of silver ions released from these films. Concentrations of 0.9 and 5.2 ppb were detected for the 3- and 150-nm films, respectively. The surface wettability of the films remained nearly identical for both film thicknesses, displaying a static water contact angle of 95°, while the surface free energy of the 150-nm film was found to be slightly greater than that of the 3-nm film, being 28.8 and 23.9 mN m−1, respectively. The two silver film thicknesses exhibited statistically significant differences in surface topographic profiles on the nanoscopic scale, with R a, R q and R max values of 1.4, 1.8 and 15.4 nm for the 3-nm film and 0.8, 1.2 and 10.7 nm for the 150-nm film over a 5 × 5 μm scanning area. Confocal scanning laser microscopy and scanning electron microscopy revealed that the bactericidal activity of the 3-nm silver film was not significant, whereas the nanoscopically smoother 150-nm silver film exhibited appreciable bactericidal activity towards Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 9027 cells and Staphylococcus aureus CIP 65.8 cells, obtaining up to 75% and 27% sterilisation effect, respectively.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported in part by the Advanced Manufacturing Co-operative Research Centre.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, Melbourne, VIC, 3122, Australia

    Elena P. Ivanova, Jafar Hasan, Vi Khanh Truong & Russell J. Crawford

  2. IRIS, Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, Melbourne, VIC, 3122, Australia

    James Y. Wang

  3. School of Geosciences, Monash University, Clayton, Melbourne, VIC, 3800, Australia

    Massimo Raveggi

  4. Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, Melbourne, VIC, 3122, Australia

    Christopher Fluke

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  1. Elena P. Ivanova
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  4. James Y. Wang
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  5. Massimo Raveggi
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  7. Russell J. Crawford
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Correspondence to Elena P. Ivanova.

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Fig. S1a

SEM, XPS and EDX spectra of silver coatings of 3 and 150 nm thicknesses. Shows typical SEM images of the silver films. Peaks in the EDX spectra indicating silica are due to the detection of the substrate beneath the silver coatings (GIF 176 kb)

Fig. S1b

SEM, XPS and EDX spectra of silver coatings of 3 and 150 nm thicknesses. Shows high-resolution XPS spectra of Ag 3d and O 1s on 3 nm (left) and 150 nm (right). Peaks in the EDX spectra indicating silica are due to the detection of the substrate beneath the silver coatings (GIF 236 kb)

Fig. S1c

SEM, XPS and EDX spectra of silver coatings of 3 and 150 nm thicknesses. Shows typical distribution maps (above) showing uniform distribution of the silver over the coating area (white dots) and EDX spectra (below). Peaks in the EDX spectra indicating silica are due to the detection of the substrate beneath the silver coatings (GIF 257 kb)

Fig. S2

Silver ion migration from silver films into PBS medium at regular intervals over 18 h as quantified by ICP-TOF-MS (GIF 46 kb)

Fig. S3

AFM surface roughness analysis showing two dimensional AFM images and corresponding surface profiles of 3 nm (left) and 150 nm (right) silver coatings on approximately 10 × 10 μm scanned areas and three-dimensional visualisation of the silver coating surfaces of 3 nm (left bottom) and 150 nm (right bottom) (GIF 2200 kb)

Fig. S4

AFM analysis of height distribution on the 3- and 150-nm silver film surfaces. Highlight in yellow areas indicates the characteristics height for each type of the surfaces (JPEG 181 kb)

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Ivanova, E.P., Hasan, J., Truong, V.K. et al. The influence of nanoscopically thin silver films on bacterial viability and attachment. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 91, 1149–1157 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3195-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-011-3195-5

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