New trimethyl chitosan-based composite nanoparticles as promising antibacterial agents.

In the present study, densely dispersed silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were rapidly green synthesized in the presence of Rumex dentatus aqueous extract, followed by UV-irradiation reduction. The Ag NPs were characterized using UV-vis spectroscopy, FTIR, XRD, and TEM. Then, the Ag NPs were incorporated into interpenetrating polymeric networks based on cationic trimethyl chitosan (TMCS) and anionic poly(acrylamide-co-sodium acrylate) copolymer to develop a new series of composite nanoparticles as potential antibacterial agents. Both TMCS and poly(acrylamide-co-sodium acrylate) were prepared in the study, and characterized using FTIR, DSC, and SEM. The synthesized Ag NPs showed high purity and uniform particle size distribution with particle size ranged between 5 and 30 nm. The composite nanoparticles demonstrated homogeneous spherical shape with size in the range of 378-402 nm. Both Ag NPs and the composite nanoparticles showed promising bactericidal activity as compared with the control. Moreover, the antibacterial activity of the composite nanoparticles increased along with increasing the concentrations of Ag NPs and the TMCS.