Chemical durability and anti-microbial property of silver-doped colloidal silica

Silver-doped silica gel was prepared by the reaction of colloidal silica and AgNO3. In the synthetic process, aluminum ions promote the chemical durability of silver-doped silica gel with dramatically decreasing the elusion of silica ions at the aqueous solution. Especially, aluminum ions induce slow release silver ion of silver-doped silica gel over a long period of time. Also, antimicrobial effects evaluated using a shake flask method resulted in a disinfection ratio of Staphylococcus aureus(ATCC 6538) and Escherichia coli(ATCC 25922) of over 99.9%, indicating high anti-microbial properties.