Paper
and paper products are widely used without any antimicrobial
efficacy in our everyday lives and thus can act as potential transporters
of many diseases. Herein, we introduce antimicrobial activity to cellulose
paper by presenting a tailored mussel-inspired strategy for the sustainable
immobilization of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), which are well-known
for the effectiveness in preventing annexation and proliferation of
microbes on materials surfaces. First, we functionalized the cellulose
paper with succinic acid that eventually reacted with dopamine to
give dopamine-modified paper. The dopamine molecules possess excellent
adhesion and strong coordination with metal substrates through catechol
groups offering a potentially robust interface between AgNPs and the
organic structure of the paper. Next, AgNPs were deposited onto the
paper by simply immersing dopamine-modified paper in a silver salt
solution to accomplish the antimicrobial properties. Field emission
scanning electron microscopic study of the synthesized antimicrobial
papers confirmed that the loading of AgNPs was time-dependent, and
the average size of the nanoparticles was in the range of 50–60
nm after 8 h of deposition time. The paper decorated with AgNPs showed
excellent antimicrobial activity against highly virulent and multiple
antibiotic resistant Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogenic bacteria
as well as against some extremely virulent fungal phytopathogens.
A low-cost, highly efficient, and recyclable magnetic nanocomposite has been developed from polyacrylic acid and carboxylated cellulose nanocrystals for the removal of cationic dyes from the wastewater.
Several challenges need to be overcome when applying nucleic acids as therapeutic agents. We developed a new way to control the onset of the release of cholesterol-conjugated oligonucleotides. Moreover, we...
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