Anti-microbial and methylene blue dye adsorption properties of cotton fabrics modified with TiO2, Fe, Ag-doped TiO2, and graphene oxide nanomaterials

Abstract

Nanoparticle materials have received increasing attention in the functional modification of textiles. In this work, pure TiO2, Ag-doped TiO2, Fe-doped TiO2, and graphene oxide nanoparticles were used to impart the anti-bacterial and adsorptive properties of nanoparticles to cotton fabric. The treated fabric materials were investigated by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The obtained treated fabrics were used as adsorbents for the removal of methylene blue from aqueous solution. The functionalized cotton fabrics were tested for their anti-microbial capability against Escherichia coli, Bacillus cereus, and Candida albicans. All the functionalized fabrics have higher anti-microbial activity compared to untreated cotton, especially the fabrics containing silver and Fe-doped TiO2. The optimum conditions of the adsorption process are determined via the study of the effect of the initial concentration of dye, pH, and contact time on the removal efficiency. Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherms are applied for the equilibrium adsorption data. GO-Cot and Ag-Ti@GO-Cot samples showed the highest adsorption removal activity. The linear correlation coefficient ( R2) showed that the Temkin model well fitted the data of adsorption in the GO-Cot sample. The analysis of experimental data with different kinetic models showed that the pseudo-second-order kinetic model well fitted the adsorption data better than the other kinetic models of the pseudo-first-order, Elovich, and intra-particle diffusion.