UCLM scientist Christopher Binns demonstrates the effectiveness of silver nanoparticles
A work led by Christopher Binns, a researcher at the Regional Institute of Applied Sciences (IRICA) of the University of Castile-La Mancha (UCLM), has demonstrated the effectiveness of silver nanoparticles as antiviral drugs and provided information about these drugs Important discoveries about how it works. Neutralize viruses.
This work is the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration between physicists at the Ciudad Real campus and biologists in Albacete, and was supported by the “Funds to overcome COVID-19” program of the Superior Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) of the Universidad de Clu, Spain of funding and Santander.
Researchers include Raúl López-Martín, Imanol Rodrigo, Carlos Ballesta, Armando Arias, Antonio Mas, Benito Santos Burgos, Peter S. Normile, José A. De Toro and Chris Binns.
UCLM centers, departments and units are also involved, such as IRICA, the Department of Applied Physics, the Biomedical Unit, the Regional Center for Biomedical Research Molecular Medicine Unit, the Higher Technical School of Agricultural and Forestry Engineering and Biotechnology and the Albacete School of Pharmacy.
Therefore, researchers from the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) have shown that silver nanoparticles deposited on the fabric used to make masks can very effectively neutralize the virus and make it non-infectious.
nanomaterials
The study is titled Effectiveness of silver nanoparticles deposited in mask materials in neutralizing viruses Its lead author is Christopher Binns, a researcher at the Regional Institute of Applied Sciences (IRICA) in Ciudad Real Campus, and has been published in the scientific journal nanomaterialsfrom the open access publisher MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute).
This work studied the neutralization of murine norovirus particles (closely related to the infectious human norovirus that causes gastroenteritis) and Usutu virus (transmitted by mosquitoes) with 4 nm diameter silver nanoparticles deposited on mask fabric. ) effectiveness.
A cheap and effective method
The results obtained concluded that silver nanoparticles were deposited on the mask material using a cheap and efficient aerosol method that allows pure uncoated nanoparticles to pass through the fabric and deposit them throughout the volume, Under optimal coating conditions, they neutralize 95 to 98 percent of viruses that enter the fabric.
critical for future pandemics
Additionally, studies have shown that the best performance is achieved with agglomerated nanoparticle films, with polycrystalline nanoparticles performing better than single crystals for murine norovirus. This adds to the extra protection provided by masks and is very important in an epidemic.
The research is scientifically important because in addition to showing the effectiveness of silver nanoparticles as antiviral agents, the work also provides important findings about how they neutralize viruses.