Silver Nanoparticles And How They May Help Clean Water

By Author: Eva Ariana
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Silver Nanoparticles have unique optical, electrical and thermal properties and have been incorporated into products that range from photovolaics to the tube sock. So what are silver nanoparticles, what do they do, and what does the future hold for them?

What are Silver Nanomaterials?
Silver Nanoparticles are by definition a small particle between 1 nm and 100nm in size. They are frequently described as being silver although some are composed of a large percentage of silver oxide due to their large ratio of surface-to-bulk silver atoms.

What do they do?
The unique properties of silver nanoparticles make them ideal for numerous technologies including biomedical, materials, optical and anticrobial applications. Below are many of the applications of Silver Nanomaterials.

Some Silver Nanoparticle Applications:

Diagnostic: Surgical instruments and biosensors where those materials can be used as biological tags for quantitative detection.
Antibacterial: Incorporated in apparel, ...
... footwear, paints, wound dressings, appliances, cosmetics, and plastics for their antibacterial properties.
Conductive: Used in conductive inks and integrated into composites to enhance thermal and electrical conductivity.
Optical: Used to efficiently harvest light and for enhanced optical spectroscopies including metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS).
Bone Cement: Used to successfully anchor artificial joints.
Clean Water: Portable filter paper laced with silver nanoparticles. Used to filter foul water of such as cholera and giardiasis, for example, that are associated with foul drinking water.
Water Purification: Using silver to kill water based bacteria is not a new idea. People have been using silver to preserve potable water for centuries. I believe that advances in portable filters are one way to go to help bring potable water sources to over 1 billion people according to the World Health Organization not currently having access to clean water. Once the drawbacks have been eliminated this kind of water purification could help areas like Haiti in 2010 when the earthquake devastated basic drinking water. Many died because of water related disease and Silver Nanomaterials may be the solution.

The idea is to have filters that are lined with Silver Nanomaterials and when E-Coli or other bacterial try to go through the filter the Silver Nanomaterials essentially kill them off. Some early experiments show that when polluted water was filtrated, the filtrated water was 100 times better for bacteria ppm than the government recommendations/regulations call for.

Author Info:

Eva Ariana is a scientist and a passionate writer. In this article she tries let you acquaint with Nano particle or say, nano particles and its properties.
for more information about nano particles visit:www.ssnano.com