The search for materials for a new generation of wound coatings is important due to the increase in antibiotic-resistant microorganisms and the number of patients with untreatable chronic purulent wounds. Metal nanoparticles, specifically silver nanoparticles, have antimicrobial activity and do not induce known bacterial resistance. To obtain new Ag-containing nanocomposites, type I collagen was extracted by an enzyme–acid method from cattle tendons. Silver nanoparticles were obtained by an environmentally safe method, metal-vapor synthesis (MVS), which enables obtaining metal nanoparticles without impurities. For this, metal vapors were cocondensed in a vacuum of 10⁻² Pa on the walls of a quartz reactor cooled to 77 K using acetone as an organic dispersion medium. The composition of the collagen surface was determined by XPS using the spectra of C1s, N1s, and O1s. The presence of a peak with a binding energy of approximately 368.57 eV in the Ag 3d_5/2 spectrum indicates the state of Ag⁰ silver atoms in the nanocomposite. SEM images showed that collagen contributes to the effective stabilization of Ag nanoparticles with an average size of 13.0 ± 3.5 nm. It was found that collagen is non-toxic and biocompatible with skin cells and fibroblasts. The collagen–Ag nanoparticle nanocomposites exhibited antimicrobial activity against bacteria Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, and fungi Aspergillus niger.

A new biologically active hybrid material based on a collagen–chitosan scaffold modified with silver nanoparticles and dihydroquercetin was prepared. The nanoparticles were obtained by the ecologically frinedly metal-vapor synthesis. The presence of two Ag0 states surrounded by various nonconducting shells and one Ag+ state was established. The resulting systems are active against the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and the fungus Candida albicans.