Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello I am testing if silver nano particles (500ppm) can kill E.coli bacteria.Can i do a comparative experiment where i can compare antibacterial properties of silver nano particles to Copper nano particles?If yes how can i find Copper nano particles 500ppm.I looked and i can only find 10ppm.Please help

Hello,

I don't see any reason why you couldn't compare the two types of nano particles. Below is a website where you can purchase various nano particles, including copper online.
http://nanoamor.com/nanoscale_elements_ ... oCGdDw_wcB
You might want to use a selective antibiotic agent so that you can be sure that on the plates you are only growing e. coli as oppose to another type of bacteria from an infection. In addition, I would use a control with no nano particles to serve as a frame of reference.

Hope this helps!

Hello there,

Just out of curiosity, how are you going to conduct your experiment? Are you going to be treating E. coli that you've purchased and grown up with the nanoparticles, or are you going to actually try to treat some sort of infection with the nanoparticles? This is in reference to what the previous expert asked because if you're going to be using pure cultures of E. coli for your experiments, then there wouldn't be any need to use a selective antibiotic agent to plate your E. coli, since that should be the only bacterium present.

Let us know if you have anymore questions.

Connie