Enhanced bacterial inactivation by activated carbon modified with nano-sized silver oxides: Performance and mechanism

作者：Deng, Jianping; Li, Bing; Yin, Weizhao; Bu, Huaitian; Yang, Bo; Li, Ping; Zheng, Xiangyu; Wu, Jinhua^*

来源：Journal of Environmental Management, 2022, 311: 114884.

DOI：10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.114884

• Silver oxide
• Activated carbon
• Modification
• Sterilization

In this study, nano-sized silver oxides were loaded on activated carbon (nAg(2)O/AC) through a facile impregnation-calcination method for enhanced bacterial inactivation from drinking water, in which Escherichia coli (E. coli) was used as target bacteria. XRD and SEM characterization confirmed that nano-sized Ag2O particles (50-200 nm) were successfully prepared and uniformly distributed on the surfaces and pores of AC. Due to the structural reducing groups of AC, surface-bound Ag(I) was partially converted to Ag in the nAg(2)O matrix and the resulted Ag could sterilize E. coli directly. More importantly, surface-bound Ag could catalyze O-2 and H2O to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) for oxidation sterilization, thus significantly enhanced the inactivation efficiency from 0.8 log(10) CFU/mL (nAg(2)O control) and 0.2 log(10) CFU/mL (AC control) to 6.0 log(10) CFU/mL in the nAg2O/AC system. The inactivation process was highly pH-dependent, and neutral pH was favorable for ster-ilization. A sterilization efficiency of 5.2 log(10) CFU/mL could still be achieved after 5 running cycles, indicating stable sterilization performance of nAg(2)O/AC. In addition, the nAg(2)O/AC also exhibited excellent renewability since a sterilization efficiency of 5.8 log(10) CFU/mL was obtained after nAg(2)O being stripped and reloaded on the AC. These results demonstrated that nAg(2)O-modified AC is an efficient material for sterilization in water treatment.

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