The Korea Science and Technology together with the Korea University has made a research that uncovered the effects of the nano-particles in killing bacteria and germs. However, their research showed that the nano-silver particles have microbe particles that are known to damage plants and animal cells that have been exposed to these particles.

Right after the research done, an alarm was raised to many washer companies and one of them was the Samsung Electronics which has been very active in their promotion of the Silver Nano Health System in washers and their air conditioners.

Gu Man-bok, professor in the bioscience department of Korea University stated that their evaluation of the effects of the silver nano-particles on different organisms as well as the environment is now on going. They further stated that the experiments the department has been doing on rice fishes have shown that the toxic on these organisms has been high in concentration.

Gu further stated that his laboratory has joined hand in hand with the Ministry of Environment to do a research about the silver nano-particles effect on different forms of life and this was considered as a delayed effort due to the fact that many consumers have already purchased washers with this technology and they have already been exposed to these kinds of products. Silver-nano cutlery, electronics, clothes, toys, baby bottles and the face masks are also now being sold in the market.

In lieu of these researches, the government of USA is planning to ban the selling of these products starting next year of evidence of safety is not provided. However, the government of South Korea stated that it was not in their plans to regulate such products.

According to Yoon Jun-won, a researcher of National Institute of Environmental Research said that it is too early to decide whether they are going to regulate certain products or not because as of this time, there aren’t proven bad effects that are coming from these products.

For long, silver has been known to have the antiseptic effect and because of this, many Greeks in the olden days had used silver vessels for drinking water storage. Koreans have also chosen silver to make their chopsticks.

Because of this fact about silver, the modern technology has also maximized the used of silver as antibiotic. Through small particles with bigger surface areas, the particles can react with other materials more actively that is why many companies have taken advantage of the use of sliver particles that measure one nanometer.

In order to know the effects of the size of particles in sterilizing, Gu together with his colleagues has used a bacterium which was genetically modified to alter the damage that was incurred. Amazingly, it was out that super-oxide radical commonly described as deleterious molecules were produced by silver nano-particles and these radicals were not produced from normal silver ions.

LG Electronics as well as Samsung created washers with the silver-nano particles technology because of its power to kill bacteria. In fact, silver nano particles really kill bacteria, however; many scientists are still not certain of the safety it gives to humans. Hwang Ee-taek said that the research field is still in the elementary stage.

Another author who was also a part of the research said that many researchers are starting to become careful and aware of the results of the silver-nano particles to humans simply because of the worries that companies concerned may give them. Accordingly, this issue is such a sensitive one especially for big companies like Samsung.

An academic journal named Small published this research in March.