ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the state of art in the field of silver–polysaccharide systems, with particular attention to biomedical and food-packaging fields. The use of silver as antimicrobial agent is well established, being its biocidal properties known also to the ancient civilizations. Silver ions can induce DNA condensation by forming complexes with the DNA bases. The most popular method to obtain silver–polysaccharide nanocomposites is the wet chemical synthesis in the presence of a reducing agent and a stabilizing agent. When a silver–polysaccharide system is employed for coating a medical device to be inserted into the body, the implantable biomaterial undergoes a surface functionalization to endow the substrate with the specific properties of the nanocomposite interface layer. Various techniques are being proposed for the production of silver–polysaccharide surfaces; among them, the layer-by-layer deposition bears a great potential in particular for biomaterial applications.
