Water Pollution Research Department, National Research Centre, 33 El Buhouth St., Dokki, Giza, 12622, Egypt.
Engineering Mathematics and Physics Department, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Future University in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt.
Sci Rep. 2022 Jun 14;12(1):9850. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-13444-2.
This study aimed to investigate the synergistic effect of the cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) and heterogeneous photocatalytic processes in an aqueous solution to enhance water purification efficacy and reduce the energy cost required by CAP. 0.1% Ag/TiO-reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanoparticles (NPs) photo-composite were prepared and fully characterized. Data showed that Ag nanoparticles and the rGO play an important role in increasing the efficiency of the whole treatment process and the photo-composite (0.1% Ag/TiO-1% rGO at 400 °C) revealed the highest phenol removal rate with excellent reusability. Also, complete inactivation (~ 5log reduction) of both E. coli and S. aureus by NPs was observed without CAP exposure, whereas a minimal effect (0.1-0.5 log) on viruses (Adenovirus (AdV), rotavirus, and ɸX174) was observed after 10 min incubation. Interestingly, the photocatalytic virus inactivation test was promising, as it resulted in > 4.7log reduction of AdV at 2 min treatment, whereas < 1log could be reduced using only CAP at the same treatment time. Accordingly, we believe that this work could provide new insights into how the synergy between CAP and 0.1% Ag/TiO-1% rGO photo-composite in aqueous media imposes a great potential for environmental applications, such as water purification and microbial inactivation.
本研究旨在探究在水溶液中低温常压等离子体（CAP）与非均相光催化协同作用对提高水净化效率、降低 CAP 能耗的影响。制备了 0.1%Ag/TiO-还原氧化石墨烯（rGO）纳米粒子（NPs）光复合材料，并对其进行了全面表征。数据表明，Ag 纳米粒子和 rGO 在提高整个处理过程的效率方面发挥了重要作用，而光复合材料（400°C 下的 0.1%Ag/TiO-1%rGO）表现出最高的苯酚去除率和优异的可重复使用性。此外，NPs 在不暴露于 CAP 的情况下可完全灭活（~5log 减少）大肠杆菌和金黄色葡萄球菌，而对病毒（腺病毒（AdV）、轮状病毒和 ɸX174）的影响较小（10min 孵育后减少 0.1-0.5log）。有趣的是，光催化病毒灭活测试结果很有前景，因为在 2min 的处理时间内，AdV 的减少量超过了 4.7log，而在相同的处理时间内，仅使用 CAP 则减少量<1log。因此，我们相信这项工作可以为理解 CAP 与 0.1%Ag/TiO-1%rGO 光复合材料在水介质中的协同作用如何为环境应用（如水质净化和微生物灭活）提供新的思路。
