Polymer-metal based material with unique 3D structure is an attractive substrate for the development of biomedical applications. A novel preparation of the composite from polymer fibres and silver nanoparticles has been designed through: (1) preparation of silver nanoparticles by phytosynthesis and (2) incorporation of these nanoparticles in a fibrous membrane prepared by electrospinning. The nanoparticle biosynthesis was performed in a pure environmental-friendly, easy, static, bottom-up in vitro regime using Tilia sp. leachate. TEM and XRD depict the formation, stabilisation and encapsulation of crystalline silver (14 ± 9 nm) nanoparticles (NPs) in one simple step with low tendency to aggregate. We achieved successful incorporation in the uniform electrospun 221 ± 24 nm poly(vinylalcohol) fibres, and this confirms the possibility of its use in the biomedical field. Both SEM with EDX and TEM analysis determined fibre uniformity with the presence of silver NPs, and ICP-AES confirmed the relatively similar metal concentration throughout the triplicate measurement of fibre structures on the 2 × 2 cm area in the following manner: 0.303 ± 0.018 wt. %, 0.282 ± 0.017 wt. %, and 0.281 ± 0.017 wt. %. Our hypothesis is based on previously verified preparation of active silver NPs and the easily prepared PVA electrospun fibres which act as a water soluble matrix. The simple methodology of incorporating biosynthetically prepared NPs in the PVA fibers highlights the effectiveness of this material, with simple release from water-soluble PVA and final activation of the prepared NPs.

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A wide range of methods can be used for nature-inspired metallic nanoparticle (NP) synthesis. These syntheses, however, are ongoing in the presence of diverse mixtures of different chemical compounds, and all or only a few of these contribute to resultant particle properties. Herein, the linden (Tilia sp.) inflorescence leachate and pure citric and protocatechuic acids were chosen for Ag-AgCl nanoparticle (NP) synthesis, and the resultant particles were then compared. We focused on the following four issues: (1) preparation of Ag-AgCl NPs using the Tilia sp.-based phytosynthetic protocol, (2) analytical determination of the common phenolic, nonphenolic, and inorganic profiles of three Tilia sp. types from different harvesting locations, (3) preparation of Ag-AgCl NPs using a mixture of citric and protocatechuic acids based on chromatographic evaluation, and (4) comparison of Tilia-based and organic acid-based syntheses. Our research confirms that the Tilia organic and inorganic profiles in biomasses are influenced by the harvesting location, and the three sites influenced both the morphology and final NP size. Our processing method was uniform, and this enabled great Ag-AgCl NP reproducibility for each specific biomass. We were then able to prove that the simplified organic acid-based synthesis produced even smaller NPs than Tilia-based synthesis. These findings provide better understanding of the significant influence on NP final properties resulting from other organic acids contained in the linden.

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