A study on antibacterial properties of silver coated carbon nanotubes

A silver layer is coated on carbon nanotubes(CNTs) by ion beam assisted deposition(IBAD) method.Standard agar dilution method is used to test antibacterial rate.E.coil and S.aureus bacteria were chose as test bacterial species.The structure and the chemical states are investigated by scanning electron microscope(SEM),energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy(EDX),X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS).The results show that silver coated CNTs possesses stronger antibacterial rate than that of silver coated pyrocarbon indicating that the silver coated CNTs may be a new candidate for artificial heart valves.