A Rapidly Growing Field of Science

Nanotechnology is a rapidly growing field of science, which is particularly interesting for researchers since the early 90s of the last century has become a vital part of the modern technology. Nanomaterials are increasingly becoming a part of our regular lives (Hill and Julang, 2017). They are characterized by new characteristics that differ from those existing at the macro materials. Therefore, nanomaterials are used in innovative products and processes (Fariq et al., 2017). Recently, application of nanomaterial extensively increased, because of high demands for the production of such materials. Classically, the nanoparticles are produced by chemical and physical methods (Stark et al., 2015), as these methods are costly, toxic and non-eco-friendly, scientists are looking forward to synthesizing low cost, non-toxic, eco-friendly nanoparticles (Singh et al., 2016; Sangeetha et al., 2017). Biogenic synthesis of nanoparticles using organisms such as bacteria, fungus and plants emerged as a suitable alternative to the more complex physical and chemical synthetic procedures (Singh et al., 2016). Fungi have some advantages over other microorganisms because they are easy to handle, their nutritional requiems are simple, have a high wall-binding capacity, as well as their capabilities for the intracellular metal uptake (Bhattacharjee et al., 2017). Silver nanoparticles are among the most widely-used metals, and are used as antimicrobial agents, water treatment, textile industries, sunscreen lotions †¦etc. (Raja et al., 2012). We assume that each kind of fungi could have its own machinery to reduce the metals through a production of a group of enzymes. So, the synthesized nanoparticle by each kind of fungi could show a specific characteristic including definite shape and size that makes them effective in many applications, especially as antimicrobial agents. Therefore, the main aim of the present study depends on the wide survey of many fungal species that were isolated from Saudi habitats to investigate their potentiality to synthesize the silver-nanoparticles. The physical characteristics of the newly produced nanoparticles will be studied using accurate and fine techniques including the X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform InfraRed (FT-IR) and the transition electron microscopy (TEM). The antibacterial activity of the characterized silver nanoparticles will be studied against many medically-important bacteria, especially that are involving in human diseases such as Escherichia coli, Proteus vulgaris, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The expected results of this research are the obtaining of new fungal species that have the ability to produce new AgNPs with the specific characteristic that could be used and a new antibiotic or antibacterial agents to control the bacterial infections especially those have a resistance to the classical chemical antibiotics