Nanotechnology membrane for high-speed water st

erilization
(Nanowerk Spotlight) Various nanotechnologies are being researched for applicati
ons in water treatment because the removal of bacteria and other organisms from
water is an extremely important process, not only for drinking and sanitation bu
t also industrially as biofouling is a commonplace and serious problem. In what
could be developed as a a cheap point-of-use water filter for deactivating patho
gens in water, or as a new component to be integrated into existing filtration s
ystems to kill microorganisms which cause biofouling in downstream filters, rese
archers have now demonstrated a textile based device for the high speed electric
al sterilization of water.
There has been a large amount of work investigating the use of silver nanopartic
les for antibacterial treatment of a variety of substrates, including cloth and
medical devices. Combining this with recent advances in fabricating three-dimens
ional nanostructures, Yi Cui, an assistant professor in materials science and en
gineering, and his collaborators at Stanford University have now demonstrated an
exciting new strategy for taking advantage of silver nanowires' and carbon nano
tubes' unique ability to form complex multiscale coatings on cotton to produce a
n electrically conducting and high surface area device for the active, high-thro
ughput inactivation of bacteria in water.

"Our chief insight over previous work is that using silver nanowires, instead of
nanoparticles, allows the silver to be placed at an electrical voltage" Cui exp
lains to Nanowerk. "As it turns out, this dramatically improves the antibacteria
l effect of the silver, allowing for the high speed operation necessary to enabl
e the water sterilization device."
Reporting their findings in the August 20, 2010, online issue of Nano Letters ("
High Speed Water Sterilization Using One-Dimensional Nanostructures"), the team
describes a simple technique for the preparations of a complex three-dimensional
device that can quickly kill bacteria in water using small amounts of electrici
ty. They accomplished this by dying regular cotton cloth with ink containing two
different nanomaterials silver nanowires and carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
This is in contrast to existing filters which remove bacteria from water by forc
ing it through small pores, which can ultimately clog and subsequently require a
 replacement of the filter.
Schematic and structure of the membrane based electrode for active electrical ba
cteria killing. (Image: Dr. Cui, Stanford University)
The structure of the novel material consists of three different fiber components
spanning three length scales and each providing a different functionality.
"The backbone of our material, cotton, was chosen since it is cheap, widely avai
lable, and chemically and mechanically robust" explains Cui. "These consideratio
ns are extremely important for making filters of practical importance and are a
challenge for many other technologies, including electrospun nanofibrous filters
.10 The pores between fibers in cotton are in the range of tens to hundreds of m
icrometers, much larger than the length scale of bacteria, which prevents the de
vice from mechanically clogging during use."
The second component are silver nanowires with diameters between 40 and 100 nm a
nd up to 10 µm in length. Apart from their bactericidal properties, these nanowire
s can form an efficient electrical transport network in filters since they reduc
e significantly the number of electron hopping times as compared to nanoparticle
s. According to Cui, this is an important advantage: "Noble metal electrodes are
known to exhibit antibacterial action under moderate currents, and the enhancem
ent of a sheet of silver nanorods' antibacterial action when placed in an electr
ic field has recently been observed. Due to the interconnected nature of the sil
ver nanowire coating, we can take advantage of this phenomenon for very effectiv
e bacterial inactivation."
The final component are carbon nanotubes. They are included as a means to provid
e conformal conductive coatings to ensure good electrical conductivity over the
entire active area of the device so it can be placed at a controlled electric po
tential and used in solution as a porous electrode.
The team tested their filtration device by operating it at five separate biases
from -20 to +20 V and by comparing silver nanowire/CNT cotton with CNT coated co
tton only.
At zero potential, neither filter effectively removes bacteria. However, at -20
V the silver nanowire/CNT cotton inactivates 89% of the bacteria, while at +20 V
it inactivates 77%.
"The CNT-only cotton shows much less activity at all voltages tested, indicating
the importance of the silver nanowires for effective bacterial inactivation" sa
ys Cui. "And while bacterial inactivation at 80-90% may not be enough for most a
pplications, our device shows similar performance over a wide range of bacteria
concentrations. Three stage serial application of this process may be used to ef
fectively reach inactivation efficiencies of more than 98%."
SEM image showing large scale structure of cotton fibers. (Image: Dr. Cui, Stanf
ord University)
He cautions that this is early work, and the device needs to be scaled to larger
sizes in order to process reasonable volumes of water. Future work will also be
necessary to assess how well the cloth retains the nanomaterials.
"If necessary the process will be engineered to avoid any release of nanomateria
ls into the processed water" Cui says.
The researchers believe it is possible that with further optimization this devic
e could be used for point of use water treatment in areas without access to chlo
rine treated water. Another exciting opportunity could be the use of this filter
to fight biofouling, which is a very common problem that affects any industry o
r process using water filtration. In typical water filters, bacteria can slowly
accumulate until they reach a critical mass, when they will form a plaque. This
biofilm is nearly impossible to remove, requiring the replacement of the filter.
"Our device could serve as a module for upstream treatment of the water to prote
ct more expensive filters downstream" says Cui. "This could be particularly usef
ul in the reverse osmosis process used in desalinization, which relies on expens
ive, delicate membranes to separate the salt from the water."
He points out that this is just one example of a growing trend: the application
of nanomaterials to less high-tech and more traditional engineering problems. "A
real challenge going forward is going to be identifying areas where nanomateria
ls can offer real advantages over existing technology, and it's a real opportuni
ty for nanoscientists to broaden their horizons beyond the problems and technolo
gies addressed in the early days of the field."