Biomimetic Method To Assemble Nanostructured Ag@ZnO on Cotton Fabrics: Application as Self-Cleaning Flexible Materials with Visible-Light Photocatalysis and Antibacterial Activities

Abstract

A bioinspired mineralization route to prepare self-cleaning cotton fabrics by functionalizing their surface with nanostructured Ag@ZnO is demonstrated herein. In a polyamine-mediated mineralization process, while the nucleation, organization and coating of ZnO is done directly from water-soluble zinc salts under mild conditions, the entrapped polyamine in the ZnO matrix acts as reducing agent to generate Ag(0) from Ag(I) at room temperature. The Ag@ZnO coated cotton fabrics are characterized by FESEM, HRTEM, XRD, and UV-vis-DRS to confirm the formation and coating of Ag@ZnO particles on individual threads of the fabric. The presence of Ag nanoparticles not only enables the ZnO-coated fabrics exhibiting improved photocatalytic property but also allows for visible-light-driven activities. Furthermore, it exhibits efficient antimicrobial activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Therefore, besides these multifunctional properties, the polyamine-mediated bioinspired approach is expected to pave way for functionalization of flexible substrates under mild conditions as desirable for the development and fabrication of smart, lightweight, and wearable devices for various niche applications.

Band gap-engineered ZnO and Ag/ZnO by ball-milling method and their photocatalytic and Fenton-like photocatalytic activities

“…The Ag-embedded samples showed higher absorption intensities in the visible region. This was attributed to the surface plasmon absorption characteristics of Ag [14,23,27,33,45,53]. The absorption edges (or the band gap) were determined from plots of [αhν] 1/2 versus hν.…”

Solar‐Inspired Water Purification Based on Emerging 2D Materials: Status and Challenges

“…The key points of photoinduced antibacterial behavior are: 1) green and environmental protection; 2) easy manufacturing process, which is convenient for mass production and application in the future; 3) low toxicity or innocuous for normal tissues; 4) enhance photoinduced capacity, which can expand absorption area to realize full‐spectrum solar‐energy driving and used heterogeneous structure to achieve charge carrier promoting separation …”

Recent Progress in Fabrication and Applications of Superhydrophobic Coating on Cellulose-Based Substrates

“…Self-cleaning materials are attracting more and more attention for its convenience and environment friendliness [145,146,147,148,149,150,151,152,153,154,155,156,157,158,159,160,161,162,163,164,165,166,167]. …”

“…The treatment has increased activation of the fabric surface and increased TiO 2 absorption for more efficient and durable self-cleaning [149]. In addition to self-cleaning ability, Rana et al reported that the Ag@ZnO nanostructures functionalized flexible cotton fabrics exhibited efficient visible-light photocatalysis and antibacterial activity [150] (Figure 14b).…”

“…( a ) Self-cleaning process on a superhydrophobic TiO 2 surface (Reprinted from Reference [148] with permission); ( b ) Ag@ZnO nanostructured self-cleaning flexible materials with photocatalysis and anti-bacterial activities (Reprinted from Reference [150] with permission).…”