Fast and complete decontamination of bacteria and yeast from water by silica-supported carbon nanoparticles simple filtration

Abstract

The present work aim to study the adsorption of different models of bacteria and yeast by silica-supported carbon nanoparticles (SCNP). SCNP was prepared at room temperature by ultrasonication of anthracene in toluene, in presence of ferrocene as catalyst and silica as nucleation sites. The strength of bacterial removal by the resultant SCNP was studied with Escherichia coli , Pseudomonas aeruginosa , and Staphylococcus aureus (as bacterial models) and Candida albicans (as yeast model). The bacterial suspension was left for 10 minutes in contact with the carbon material, filtrated and we enumerated bacteria in the filtrate obtained. The bacterial adsorption results exhibited complete adsorption efficiency after short contact time with SCNP. These results demonstrate the strength of the SCNP to completely adhere the bacteria and yeast. Similar experiment was conducted on silica particles without carbon, but no bacterial adsorption was observed. This clearly indicates the effectiveness of the SCNP to easily and simply adsorb bacteria and yeast without outside interference parameters.