Nanocomposite Hydrogel based on Silver Nanoparticles/Graphene-oxide Self Assembly for Potable Water Disinfection

Abstract

New generation nanomaterials provide many opportunities for the treatment of waste water. The development of these kinds of materials has a commitment to deal with some challenges to become most efficient antibacterial agent. Successful water disinfection must have the capability to destroy microorganisms without forming any disinfection by products and disturbing the environment. At present very few materials possess this activity but they are practically limited because of aggregation in solvent, mechanical instability and toxicity etc.The present work describes the synthesis of nano-silver based hydrogel nanocomposite consisting of porous networks of natural biopolymer chitosan and graphene oxide with uniformly dispersed AgNPs (CH/GO/Ag) synthesized by in situ chemical reduction. Scanning Electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) Spectroscopy, Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize CH/GO/Ag hydrogels. 3D structure of hydrogel provided space for silver nanoparticles and act as matrix for the immobilization of AgNPs. Hydrogels show excellent swelling capacity and rigidity. Disinfection tests were performed against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Enterobacter aerogenes showed that CH/GO/Ag hydrogels exhibited good antibacterial activity and time required to achieve complete disinfection was 120 min.