Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 999077, P. R. China.
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang, Avenue, 639798, Singapore.
Sci Rep. 2017 May 24;7(1):2334. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-02452-2.
We report a facile method for preparing silver-loaded membranes for point-of-use disinfection and disaster relief applications. A bio-inspired material, polydopamine, was coated onto a highly porous nanofibrous polyacrylonitrile substrate. We then take advantage of the redox properties of polydopamine to form silver nanoparticles in situ. These nanoparticles were uniformly distributed on the surface of nanofibers with no apparent agglomeration at a silver loading up to 4.36 wt.% (cPAN-Ag1.5). The silver-incorporated membrane cPAN-Ag1.5 achieved a high pure water flux of 130 Lm h at 10-cm water head, demonstrating the feasibility of energy-efficient gravity-driven filtration and eliminating the need for electrical power. The strong anti-bacterial activity and high physical rejection of the membrane led to an excellent disinfection power, with no viable bacterial cells detected in its permeate water. The membrane exhibited >7 log reduction for E. coli and >6 log reduction for B. subtilis. The strategy reported here provides an efficient and green route to synthesize point-of-use membranes. Combining their excellent permeability and disinfection effectiveness, these membranes offer an ideal solution to water supply in disaster-affected areas.
我们报告了一种用于制备用于即时消毒和救灾应用的载银膜的简便方法。一种仿生材料聚多巴胺被涂覆到高度多孔的纳米纤维聚丙烯腈基底上。然后，我们利用聚多巴胺的氧化还原性质原位形成银纳米粒子。这些纳米粒子均匀分布在纤维表面上，没有明显的聚集，银负载量高达 4.36wt.%（cPAN-Ag1.5）。掺入银的膜 cPAN-Ag1.5 在 10 厘米水柱的水头上实现了 130 Lm h 的高纯水通量，证明了节能重力驱动过滤的可行性，并且无需电力。该膜具有很强的抗细菌活性和高物理截留率，因此具有出色的消毒能力，其渗透水中未检测到存活的细菌细胞。该膜对大肠杆菌的减少超过 7 对数，对枯草芽孢杆菌的减少超过 6 对数。这里报道的策略提供了一种高效且绿色的合成即用型膜的途径。这些膜结合了它们优异的渗透性和消毒效果，为受灾地区的供水提供了理想的解决方案。
