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Comparative Assessment of the Graphene Oxide and Reduced Graphene Oxide Influence on the Zeta Potential of Selected Bacteria in Drinking Water Environment

P. KURTYCZ, A. M. JASTRZĘBSKA, E. KARWOWSKA, A. OLSZYNA

Abstract



Microbial adsorption to solid surfaces plays a fundamental role in bioengineering, food processing, environmental protection, medicine and medical biotechnology as well as power industry and water filtration [1]. It is generally accepted that nanomaterials are providing great opportunity to develop bioactive sorbent materials which can be used as electrodes in fuel cells as well as separation media in water purification to remove inorganic and organic pollutants from contaminated water. They offer a number of advantageous physicochemical properties. On a mass basis, they can be characterized by much larger surface area and surface bioactivity than their bulk counterparts [2]. Nanomaterials can also be functionalized with various chemical groups which allow selectively targeting key biochemical constituents of waterborne bacteria and viruses [3]. Several research groups were exploring the sorption properties of nanomaterials such as: multiwalled carbon nanotubes [4,5], or chemically activated carbon fibers [6]. So far, graphene and graphene oxide also attracted great scientific attention as a potential effective sorbents. The knowledge of the electrochemical properties of microorganisms is also of benefit in explaining bacteria adsorption processes and resulting formation of biofilms. Bacterial cell electric properties can also be characterized by the zeta potential. The primary objective of this study was to describe the graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide influence on the zeta potential of selected bacteria with a special emphasis on the analysis of the zeta potential distributions as a function of pH. Due to acquire comparable investigations results of the influence of graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide on the zeta potential of bacteria, it is vital to perform experiments on an appropriate material. Thus, in our study, for graphene oxide reduction we have chosen thermal annealing (under vacuum) method due to acquire reduced graphene oxide, characterised by similar morphology and physical properties to graphene oxide but differing in surface chemical composition.

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