SILVER NANOPARTICLE SYNTHESIS USING ULTRASOUND AND HALLOYSITE TO CREATE A NANOCOMPOSITE WITH ANTIBACTERIAL PROPERTIES

The antibacterial nanocomposites creation is a current trend against microbial contamination and microorganism's biofilm formation. Existing methods for producing nanocomposites based on silver nanoparticles are difficult, expensive, and not environment friendly; therefore it has become necessary to develop a new method for their synthesis that didn't have these minus. The paper discusses the possibility of silver nanoparticles synthesizing and obtains a new nanocomposite using halloysite nanotubes and ultrasound. Transmission electron microscopy revealed the silver nanoparticles presence on the inner and outer surface of halloysite nanotubes, and sample mapping showed a uniform distribution of silver nanoparticles in the nanocomposite. The antibacterial activity of the obtained nanocomposite against the strainSerratia marcescens(S. marcescens) was more than twice higher than that of the control. The swarming motility method showed that the diameter of migration ofS. marcescenswas 2.05 +/- 0.05 cm, and in the presence of the nanocomposite, it was 1.63 +/- 0.04 cm, indicating the ability of the nanocomposite to inhibit biofilm formation in these bacteria. In the future, the obtained nanocomposite can be used as an additive to various materials or as a coating protecting against bacterial contamination of various surfaces and materials.