Table 5.

Comparison of Plasmonic Nano-Antimicrobials with Other Antimicrobial Strategies.

	Conventional Sterilization Techniques	Plasmonic Nano-Antimicrobials	Other Nanoscale Antimicrobials	Molecular Antimicrobial Drugs or Peptides	Macroscale Antimicrobial Materials or Coatings
Broad-band antimicrobial efficacy	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Visible light responsivity		✓ ✓	✓
Resilience against microbial resistance development	✓	✓	✓		✓
Large-scale and repeatable in vitro inactivation effect	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Specificity in in vivo disinfection applications				✓
Sensing and theranostic capability		✓ ✓	✓		✓
Low cost and low energy and environmental hazards				✓	✓