Nowadays, a third of the world’s population still does not have enough access to clean drinking water and suffer from water-related diseases. As a result, there is an urgent need for cheap point-of-use methods to purify drinking water. In this study, we developed a silver nanowire (AgNW)-modified filter with controllable Ag+ release for pathogen inactivation in water. When contaminated water passed through the composite filter, the AgNW network released Ag+, while pathogens were exposed to Ag+ and inactivated. Since the AgNW network was interconnected and highly conductive, the Ag+ release was controllable by connecting the AgNW network to an external circuit. All the loss of silver was in the form of Ag+ and the released Ag+ concentration could be controlled to a sufficiently high value (~30-50 µg/L) for pathogen inactivation but lower than the recommended health regulation (100 µg/L). Therefore, the composite filter provided a low-cost and effective point-of-use water disinfection method that did not result in any disinfection by-products in the treated water and could be easily implemented in resource-limited settings, providing more people in the world with safe drinking water.

Silver nanowire-modified filter with controllable silver ion release for pathogen inactivation in water

2019 Spring National Meeting

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