Evaluation of Anti-microbial activity of graphene oxide-TiO2 nanocomposites with variable compositions

Abstract

The anti-fungal activity towards the elimination of the fungus Candida albicans and Candida rugosa and anti-bacterial activity for the removal of gram-negative Escherichia coli, gram-positive Staphylococcus aurues bacteria were evaluated with the graphene oxide-TiO2 nanocomposites. These nanocomposites contain a fixed weight of titania with variable weight % of graphene oxide (1%, 5 %, 10 %, 15%). The photocatalytic activity of these composites has been evaluated earlier towards the degradation of different organic dyes. In the present work, their biological activity was determined. It was observed that the micro-organisms removal was higher in the presence of graphene oxide than with the bare nanotitania particles. Further, the removal has increased with increase in the wt.% of graphene oxide in the nanocomposites. Superior anti-microbial activity was shown by composite with 10 wt.% graphene oxide. In the studies, anti-bacterial performance was observed to be greater than the anti-fungal activity with the nanocomposites.