abstract
Silver nanoparticles (NPs) have received great attention, mainly due to their application as antimicrobial agents in diverse products, including textile- and paper-based materials. In this context, straightforward methodologies to monitor their cationic silver release capacity in diverse environments are required due to the rise of manufactured products containing silver NPs. Here, we describe the application of a potentiometric method based on a silver-selective electrode to monitor the kinetics of cationic release from cellulose/silver nanocomposites. We designed a set of experiments to apply this method to nanocomposites with several distinct types of cellulose matrices: vegetable, bacterial and nanofibrillated. The morphological features of the cellulose had a great influence on the distribution of silver NPs within the matrix as well as on the Ag+ release profiles. The cationic release profiles were interpreted based on common models, showing that, for the vegetal and bacterial cellulose nanocomposites, the kinetics is pseudo-first order, while for the nanofibrillated cellulose materials a model based on Fick's power law provided the best fit.
keywords
SILVER ION RELEASE; IN-SITU SYNTHESIS; ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY; METAL NANOPARTICLES; ESCHERICHIA-COLI; GREEN SYNTHESIS; KINETICS; BACTERIAL; COMPOSITES; GENERATION
subject category
Materials Science; Polymer Science
authors
Silva, FM; Pinto, RJB; Daniel-da-Silva, AL; Trindade, T
our authors
Ana Luísa Daniel da Silva
Principal Researcher
Fábio Martins Silva
PhD Student
Ricardo Pinto
Researcher
Tito Trindade
Full professoracknowledgements
The authors wish to thank FCT (Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia) for analytical instrumentation support (POCI2010, FEDER, REEQ/515/CTM/2005 POCI), FEDER (program COMPETE) and FCT/FEDER in the framework of projects Pest-C/CTM/LA0011/2013. FCT and POPH/FSE are gratefully acknowledged for a postdoctorate grant to R.J.B.P. (SFRH/BPD/89982/2012). Microscopy analysis was supported by Rede Nacional de Microscopia Eletronica (RNME-Pole UA FCT) project REDE/1509/RME/2005.