*2.1. Plant Materials and Chemicals*

The *E. spiralis* stem was collected from the forest in Tasik Chini, Pahang, Malaysia, while the *C. pentandra* fiber was collected during their season from February to April every year from their trees in Besut, Terengganu, Malaysia. The plant of *E. spiralis* and *C. pentandra* are shown in Figure 1. The collected *C. pentandra* fiber was separated from their seed and cleaned with distilled water in order to remove any adhering materials. After being cleaned, the *C. pentandra* fiber was then dried at 60 ◦C in the oven (Memmert, Germany) overnight. The dried *C. pentandra* fiber was stored in a plastic container for further experiments. Four species of bacteria including two Gram-positive species (*Staphylococcus aureus* (*S. aureus*) (ATCC 25923) and *Enterococcus faecalis* (*E. faecalis*) (ATCC 29212)), as well as two Gram-negative species (*Proteus Vulgaris* (*P. vulgaris*) (ATCC 33420) and *Escherichia coli* (*E. coli*) (ATCC 25922)), were bought from Choice Care Sdn. Bhd, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The silver nitrate (99.85%) was purchased from Acros organic, Geel, Belgium. The sodium hydroxide pellet, nitric acid (69%) and sodium borohydride powder were bought from R&M, Birmingham, UK. The methylene blue dye was bought from (System, Malaysia) and Rhodamine B dye was bought from (R&M, Birmingham, UK). The Mueller Hinton agar (MHA), Mueller Hinton broth (MHB) and gentamicin antibiotic standard (disk) (10 μg) was bought from Difco, Detroit, Michigan, MI, USA. All the chemicals were used without any purification. The deionized water from ELGA Lab-Water/VWS (Buckinghamshire, UK) purification system was used throughout the experiment.

**Figure 1.** (**a**) *E. spiralis* plant, (**b**) *C. pentandra* plant and (**c**) *C. pentandra* fiber in the seed pod.
