Study On Synthesis And Disinfection Of Silver Nanowires–active Carbon Fiber Cloth Nanocomposites

Safe water is important for protecting the live and working of humankind. At the present, lots of people still lack access to safe and clean drinking water, and the microbial contamination is the primary reason causing the unsafe drinking water, which seriously damages the public health and prevents the development of local economy and society. However, it is difficult for the conventional disinfection methods to be large-scale applied in the rural areas. Therefore, new materials and technologies for drinking water disinfection should be investigated, which can overcome the problems mentioned above.Taking the antimicrobial silver nanowires(AgNWs) as core material and the conductive active carbon fiber cloth(ACFC) as basic material, this study achieved the rapid and facile synthesis of AgNWs-ACFC nanocomposites by using UV curing technology. XRD, FTIR, and FESEM were used to analyze the nanocomposites. The results found that AgNWs networks with sharp ―nano tips‖ structure were dispersed on the surface of ACFC. The AgNWs networks were more complex with more loading of AgNWs. The analysis of GFAAS found that the silver release of AgNWs-ACFC nanocomposites was less than 100 μg/L. And the UV curing adhesive could protect the AgNWs-ACFC from being affected by the water flow, which reduced the silver release, enhancing the loading stability of AgNW on the ACFC.The antibacterial tests indicated that both UV curing adhesive and ACFC were not antibacterial, but AgNWs played an important role in the antibacterial activity. And the more AgNWs loading led to the stronger antibacterial activity. However, UV curing adhesive could weaken the antibacterial activity of AgNWs-ACFC, and UV curing adhesive with higher concentration weaken the antibacterial activity of AgNWs more seriously. Without electric field, the antibacterial activity of AgNWs-ACFC related to the silver release, the more silver release would result in the stronger antibacterial activity.According to the antimicrobial activity and electrical conductivity of AgNWs-ACFC, an electrical filterable disinfection device was designed and made. The electrochemical disinfection performance of AgNWs-ACFC against E. coli and MS2 phage was investigated. The results showed that AgNWs-ACFC could achieve fast disinfection in the electric field, and the max removal against both E. coli and MS2 with concentration of 106 CFU/mL(PFU/mL) exceeded 99.9%. The higher voltage could enhance the electrochemical disinfection of AgNWs-ACFC, but higher flow rate and microbial concentration made negative effect on the disinfection performance.The electroporation to microorganism by electrical field and AgNWs was the main mechanism of electrochemical disinfection of AgNWs-ACFC. The higher voltage and more AgNWs loading would lead to the stronger electroporation. Besides, the Ag~+ and reactive oxygen species also make some contribution to the disinfection of AgNWs-ACFC in the low voltage.