Abstract

Silver is a well known antimicrobial agent against a wide range of microorganisms – over 650 microorganisms from different classes, such as gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, fungi or viruses. Due to the ratio between positive and negative (side) effects, silver gained advantages over many other antimicrobial agents, and especially antibiotics. The potential applications of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) are strongly influenced by some factors such as size and shape. Besides the huge efforts in the field of synthesis, characterization and applications of Ag-NPs there are many unknown or contradictory observations/conclusions. The current review is focused on the synthesis and characterization of silver for biomedical applications and point out the correlations between the characteristics of Ag-NPs (size and shape, especially) and their induced effects.

Keywords: Silver nanoparticles, shape and size control, silver substituted hydroxyapatite, antimicrobial, antitumoral, antiviral.