Comparative Assessment of Antimicrobial Efficiency of Ionic Silver, Silver Monoxide, and Metallic Silver Incorporated onto an Aluminum Oxide Nanopowder Carrier

Figure 5

Particle and agglomerate size distributions of the nanopowders produced by using consecutive stages of the dry sol-gel method such as Al₂O₃-Ag⁺ after hexane evaporation at 25°C, 24 h, air atmosphere (a); Al₂O₃-Ag₂O after thermal decomposition at 700°C, 24 h, air atmosphere (b); and Al₂O₃-Ag after reduction at 700°C, 2 h, H₂ atmosphere (c). The silver content in the final product was 0.0 wt% (samples marked with 0), 0.30 wt% (samples marked with 1), 1.35 wt% (samples marked with 2), 2.84 wt% (samples marked with 3), and 12.55 wt% (samples marked with 4).

(a)

(b)

(c)