Synthesis and Biological Activity of Engineered SiO2 Nanomaterials

Abstract

The multidisciplinary use of nanomaterials in everyday products has led to their release into the environment, where they can pose a threat to living organisms, including microorganisms. Currently, the level of new nanomaterials exceeds the set of available information about their potential toxicity. Therefore, it is of the greatest importance and challenge for future research to carry out nanotoxicological studies in order to expand the knowledge about their biological activity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential toxic effect of newly synthesized nSiO 2 nanoparticles and the nCu/SiO 2 nanocomposite against selected microorganisms. For this purpose, traditional toxicological methods using reference bacteria Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis as well as Microbial Assay for Risk Assessment (MARA) were performed. The study showed that nSiO 2 had a greater antibacterial impact on reference strains than nCu/SiO 2. In addition to this, B. subtilis was more sensitive to nanomaterials than E. coli. Ecotoxicological MARA test showed that the tested nanomaterials exhibited low antibacterial activity and none of them had antifungal activity. SEM imaging indicated that both nanomaterials formed irregularly shaped agglomerates.