Piovesan, Jacopo; (2025) Synthesis of silver, copper and zinc oxide nanoparticles and their potential application as antifungal agents. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Text Piovesan PhD Thesis 2024.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 September 2025. Download (6MB)

Abstract

Fungal infections are common but poorly treated. The limited number of antifungal treatments on the market means it is imperative to develop new agents. Metal nanoparticles have been found to have antifungal activities. However, much remains to be determined regarding the influence of the particles’ physicochemical characteristics and their antifungal effect. In order to determine any such correlation, it is fundamental to develop a reliable and reproducible synthesis method which can produce particles with precisely defined physicochemical properties. An understanding of the mechanism of particle formation is required. The first part of this work is composed of an interdisciplinary review on the synthesis of metal nanoparticles and their application as antifungal agents. It underlines the need to produce high-quality materials together with a detailed characterisation to allow the determination of any correlation between the physicochemical characteristic of the material and its antifungal behaviour. Next, by tracking the localised surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of the silver nanoparticles during their formation at different concentrations of reducing and capping agents and reaction temperature, the most suitable conditions to produce small nanoparticles (<10 nm) with small size distributions in a reproducible manner were determined. An impinging jet reactor was then used as a flow synthesis method to produce silver, copper oxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles by chemical reduction. Furthermore, a seeded-growth mechanism was implemented to produce silver nanoparticles with sizes between 8 and 60 nm. Finally, different nanoparticle suspensions were tested as antifungal candidates against C. albicans, C. auris and T. rubrum. A method that is suitable for investigating the antifungal potency of entities that are coloured or particulate in nature was identified. Overall, a size-dependent antifungal effect was observed for silver and copper oxide nanoparticles, where smaller nanoparticles were found to possess greater antifungal capabilities.

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