The efficacy of Ag coating as an antibacterial agent is related to the release of Ag in its oxidized form (ie as ion Ag + ) . Since the ultimate goal would be to make metallic implant surfaces with the Ag induced surface reactivity, it was important to investigate the release of Ag ions from the fabricated samples in aqueous media to ascertain the extent of Ag NPs transformation to Ag + for effective antibacterial activity, measured here by ICP-MS; the release of Zr ion was also monitored. Figure compares the Ag + release behavior from both samples and it showed that there was relatively no release from the undecorated samples; a flat curve for the 10 days monitored. This is different with the decorated ZrNT; where there was Ag + released with an initially higher concentration (10 µg/L) and subsequently reduced to a constant amount of (~4 µg/L) which further confirms the successful modification. In aqueous solutions, it has been reported that silver nanoparticles can be oxidized, and under acidic conditions, silver ions are released . This can explain the Ag release from the modified sample, where the AgNP released to the PBS medium is oxidized and during sample preparation for ICP -MS measurements, nitric acid used as part of the dilution and conservation medium provides the acidic condition for the dissolution of silver oxide to silver ions (eq 2).