Immobilization of Highly Dispersed Ag Nanoparticles on Carbon Nanotubes Using Electron-Assisted Reduction for Antibacterial Performance.

Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) supported on certain materials have been widely used as disinfectants. Yet, to date, the antibacterial activity of the supported Ag NPs is still far below optimum. This is mainly associated with the easy aggregation of Ag NPs on the supporting materials. Herein, an electron-assisted reduction (EAR) method, which is operated at temperatures as low as room temperature and without using any reduction reagent, was employed for immobilizing highly dispersed Ag NPs on aminated-CNTs (Ag/A-CNTs). The average Ag NPs size on the EAR-prepared Ag/A-CNTs is only 3.8 nm, which is much smaller than that on the Ag/A-CNTs fabricated from the traditional thermal calcination (25.5 nm). Compared with Ag/A-CNTs fabricated from traditional thermal calcination, EAR-prepared Ag/A-CNTs shows a much better antibacterial activity to E. coli/S. aureus and antifouling performance to P. subcordiformis/T. lepidoptera. This is mainly originated from the significantly enhanced Ag(+) ion releasing rate and highly dispersed Ag NPs with small size on the EAR-prepared Ag/A-CNTs. The findings from the present work are helpful for fabricating supported Ag NPs with small size and high dispersion for efficient antibacterial process.