Efficient bacteria capture and inactivation by cetyltrimethylammonium bromide modified magnetic nanoparticles

Functionalized magnetic nanoparticles have shown great application potentials in water treatment processes especially for bacterial removal. Antibacterial agent, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), was employed to modify Fe3O4 nanoparticles to fabricate bactericidal paramagnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4@CTAB). The as-prepared Fe3O4@CTAB could effectively capture both Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis from water. For both cell types, more than 99% of bacteria with initial concentration of 1.5 × 10(7)CFU/mL could be inactivated by Fe3O4@CTAB (0.5 g/L) within 60 min. Fe3O4@CTAB could remove more than 99% of cells over a wide pH (from 3 to 10) and solution ionic strength range (from 0 to 1000 mM). The copresence of sulfate and nitrate did not affect the bacterial capture efficiencies, whereas, phosphate and silicate slightly decreased the bacterial removal rates. However, more than 91% and 81% of cells could be captured at 10mM of phosphate and silicate, respectively. Over 80% of cells could be removed even in the presence of 10mg/L of humic acid. Moreover, Fe3O4@CTAB exhibited good reusability, and greater than 83% of cells could be captured even in the fifth regeneration cycle. Fe3O4@CTAB prepared in this study have great application potentials for water disinfection.