I NTRODUCTION Medicinal and preservative properties of silver have been known for over 2,000 years. The ancien t Greek and Roman civilizations used silver vessels to keep water potable. Since the nineteenth century, silver-based compounds have been widely used in bactericidal applications, in burns and in wound therapy, etc . Over the last decades silver has been engineered into nanoparticles , structures from 1 to 100 nm in size. Owing to their small size, the total surface area of the nanoparticles is maximized, leading to the highest values of the activity to weight ratio. Due to this property being distinctly different from that of the bulk metal, silver nanoparticles have attracted much attention and have found applications in dive...