Fabrication and morphological characterizations of immobilized silver-loaded titanium dioxide nanoparticles/polyvinyl alcohol nanocomposites

Abstract

This study is concerned to the immobilization of silver-loaded titanium dioxide (AT) nanoparticles (NPs) into or onto polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as matrix. The nanocomposites films were fabricated via solution casting method. The optical properties and morphology of the NPs and nanocomposites were characterized by dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, contact angle measurements, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The obtained results of FE-SEM analysis for nanocomposites indicate that the 40-80 nm AT NPs are homogenously distributed in PVA matrix. The unsymmetrical parts of peaks and valleys for nanocomposites in three-dimensional AFM images were related to the residual of AT NPs in outsides, although in the majority of locations it showed similar patterns of peaks and valleys. The studies of nanocomposites by using UV revealed that existence of the AT NPs were increased the shield properties against UV light. Reinforcement of PVA with AT nanomaterials enhances the properties of the prepared films and develops their applications in different industrial fields such as packaging.

Silver Nanoparticle Incorporated Titanium Oxide for Bacterial Inactivation and Dye Degradation

“…Furthermore, the metallic silver loading on TiO 2 is observed to shift the maximum absorption to a longer wavelength that is about 430-574 nm [31,66,67,72,75,81]. The DR spectra give respective band gap energy as much as 2.88-2.16 eV.…”

“…The dye photodegradation increases with the increase in the photocatalyst dose. The effectiveness of the photodegradation reduces when the photocatalyst dose is further increased [66][67][68]81]. The maximum photodegradation is obtained by using 1 g photocatalyst/100 mL [68,74,81].…”

“…The absorption shift is found to be affected by Ag content in TiO 2 -AgNP [67,68,75,81], the preparation method of TiO 2 -AgNP, and calcination temperature [72]. The shift increases with the increasing Ag amount in TiO 2 because more Ag inserted into the gap so that the gap becomes narrower than that of bare TiO 2 , shifting in the absorption wavelength to increase.…”

“…There is a synergic effect of TiO 2 and Ag in inhibiting bacteria [63-65, 78, 79]. The activity of Ag in the bacteria inactivation process is examined by applying TiO 2 -AgNP in dark condition [81]. It has been postulated that silver disrupts the cell wall and affects the rapid penetration of the metallic ions into the cell where irreversible precipitation of the bacteria's DNA occurs [84].…”

“…There are ongoing works related with the use of Ag for possible medical devices [79], dental implants [78,79], food packagings [80], air conditioning filters, and so on [79]. Some works focus on bacterial inactivation [34,63] and dye waste treatment under visible light irradiation [66,67,[81][82][83]. Hence, the preparation and characterization of the TiO 2 -based photocatalyst and its activity are presented.…”