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Download fileElectroresponsive Supramolecular Graphene Oxide Hydrogels for Active Bacteria Adsorption and Removal
journal contribution
posted on 2016-05-31, 00:00 authored by Bin Xue, Meng Qin, Junhua Wu, Dongjun Luo, Qing Jiang, Ying Li, Yi Cao, Wei WangBacteria
contamination in drinking water and medical products can cause severe
health problems. However, currently available sterilization methods,
mainly based on the size-exclusion mechanism, are typically slow and
require the entire contaminated water to pass through the filter.
Here, we present an electroresponsive hydrogel based approach for
bacteria adsorption and removal. We successfully engineered a series
of graphene oxide hydrogels using redox-active ruthenium complexes
as noncovalent cross-linkers. The resulting hydrogels can reversibly
switch their physical properties in response to the applied electric
field along with the changes of oxidation states of the ruthenium
ions. The hydrogels display strong bacteria adsorbing capability.
A hydrogel of 1 cm3 can adsorb a maximum of 1 × 108 E. coli. The adsorbed bacteria
in the hydrogels can then be inactivated by a high voltage electric
pulse and removed from the hydrogels subsequently. Owing to the high
bacteria removal rate, reusability, and low production cost, these
hydrogels represent promising candidates for the emergent sterilization
of medical products or large-scale purification of drinking water.