Silver nanoparticles: Synthesis, Applications, and Side Effects

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have garnered considerable interest recently due to their diverse applications and exceptional physicochemical properties. As AgNPs have distinct optical, electrical, catalytic, antibacterial, and antioxidant properties, they are widely used in commercial cosmetics, industrial electronics, medicinal applications such as drug delivery, wound and bone healing, biosensing, and cancer therapy, energy storage, and agricultural applications such as water filtration and treatment systems. Regardless of these benefits, AgNPs have toxic effects due to their accumulation in cellular tissues and organs, causing an increase in ROS, leading to oxidative stress, inflammation, and damage to vital organs like the liver, kidneys, spleen, and reproductive tissues. To get AgNPs’ advantages, enhance biocompatibility, and mitigate their harmful effects, many strategies are applied as green synthesis methods, controlled dosage and exposure, size and shape modifications, composite nanoparticles, and surface coating. The appropriate application of AgNPs in industry and medicine depends on careful approaches that combine unique synthesis, safe delivery, and toxicity evaluation. In this review, we seek to gain a better knowledge of how to synthesize AgNPs in order to maximize their benefits while minimizing their toxicity.