Synthesis of nanocomposites of polypyrrole/carbon nanotubes/silver nano particles and their application in water disinfection

Abstract

Contamination of drinking or irrigation water with pathogenic bacteria, such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), is a major global health problem. Nanomaterials have been of growing interest owing to their promising properties as antimicrobial agents. In this study, in situ oxidative polymerization of pyrrole with silver nitrate was employed to obtain nanocomposites materials containing different percentages of single wall carbon nanotubes (CNT_0–60/PPy/AgNPs). The reaction proceeds smoothly at room temperature and the silver content was about 80 wt% of composite. The morphology of composites was determined by transmission electron microscope (TEM) to indicate the formation of core–shell structure in which AgNPs as core and PPy–CNT as shell with observed homogeneity in the nanocomposites. The samples were also characterized by ATR-FTIR, XRD, and TGA. CNT_0–60/PPy/AgNPs materials were used for bacterial removal from water. The bacterial removal was evaluated using the column filter method. The results indicated that the removal percentage of E. coli ranged from 87.5% to 95% using CNT_0–20/PPy/AgNPs. The data obtained in this study indicated that CNT₆₀/PPy/AgNPs nanocomposite was found to be effective towards E. coli with 100% removal, whereas PPy/AgNPs obtained in this work was specific for the complete removal of S. aureus (100%).