Synthesis of Ag/AgCl-mesoporous silica nanocomposites using a simple aqueous solution-based chemical method and a study of their antibacterial activity on E. coli

Simple aqueous solution-based chemical methods have been developed for the synthesis of Ag/AgCI nanoparticle-mesoporous silica nanocomposites. Ag loading in the mesoporous silica was accomplished using a wet-impregnation method. The AgCl-mesoporous silica nanocomposite material （AgCl-mSi） was synthesized by using a ＇one pot method. Synthesized materials were characterized using X-ray diffraction, N2 adsorption-desorption analysis and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Antibacterial activity of the synthesized materials was investigated against Escherichia coil （E. coil） using the conventional plate-count method. All the materials showed high antibacterial activity even when the percentage loading of Ag in the nanocomposite was as low as 10wt%.