In this work, a novel method was proposed for the fabrication of antibacterial nanocomposite polymeric films, for use in food packaging. In the first step, a stable colloidal solution of silver nanoparticles was prepared by chemical reduction of silver salt using fructose as an environmental friendly reducing agent. In the second step, corona air plasma was used as a pretreatment of low density polyethylene (LDPE) films to increase the adhesion of silver nanoparticles on the film surface. In the third step, silver nanoparticles were coated on the LDPE surface by immersion of the treated films in the colloidal silver solutions. Surface morphology of the silver/LDPE nanocomposite was characterized by FE-SEM and AFM analysis. The amounts of coated silver and silver ion release from the nanocomposite surface were determined. In addition, the antibacterial activity of the fabricated films was evaluated by agar well diffusion and dynamic shake flask methods.

In this work, a green method for the preparation of silver nanoparticles was proposed and stability and properties of the nanoparticles were compared with the silver nanoparticles synthesized by a conventional chemical reduction method. Fructose was used as an environmentally friendly reducing agent while in another method trisodium citrate was utilized as a reducing agent. Effect of various experimental parameters on the particle size and stability of nanoparticles was studied. The silver nanoparticles were characterized by UV-vis, XRD, DLS, high-resolution FE-SEM, and TEM analysis. Besides, antibacterial activity of the silver nanoparticles was evaluated against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli.

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