Nanosilver: Safety, health and environmental effects and role in antimicrobial resistance

Considering emerging and newly identified health risksOn request of the European Commission, the independent Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) was requested to assess whether the use of nanosilver, in particular in medical care or in consumer products, could result in additional risks compared to more traditional uses of silver and whether the use of nanosilver to control bacterial growth could result in resistance of micro-organisms.The full text of the SCE-NIHR Opinion is freely accessible [1].This Comment looks at several unresolved problems that require the attention of the materials science community.Silver (Ag) materials, including those at the nanoscale (nanosilver), are widely used today for their antibacterial activity.However, the usefulness of (nano)silver in various medical applications may be limited because of the increased resistance of microorganisms against silver.The various silver compounds have different physico-chemical properties, such as solubility and surface charge, which affect their