Exploiting bioderived humic acids: A molecular combination with ZnO nanoparticles leads to nanostructured hybrid interfaces with enhanced pro-oxidant and antibacterial activity. Issue 1 (February 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Venezia, Virginia; Verrillo, Mariavittoria; Gallucci, Noemi; Di Girolamo, Rocco; Luciani, Giuseppina; D'Errico, Gerardino; Paduano, Luigi; Piccolo, Alessandro; Vitiello, Giuseppe
• Is Part Of: Journal of environmental chemical engineering. Volume 11:Issue 1(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-02
• Subjects: Waste-to-wealth -- Hybrid nanomaterial -- ZnO -- Humic acid -- Wet-chemistry -- Photocatalytic ability -- Antibacterial activity; Chemical engineering -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Environmental engineering -- Periodicals; Chemical engineering -- Environmental aspects; Environmental engineering; Periodicals; 660.0286
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jece.2022.108973
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2213-2929

Abstract

Abstract: The waste-to-wealth strategy is encouraging the design of a plethora of new value-added materials, by exploiting the chemical and biological richness of biowastes. Humic Acids (HA) are mostly intriguing because of their amphiphilic supramolecular associations which are responsible for several assets, such as adsorption ability towards small molecules, metal ion chelation, redox behavior, and antibacterial activity. The molecular combination of HA with semiconductor nanoparticles represents a valuable strategy to obtain nanostructured hybrid materials and interfaces with advanced features. Concurrently, it permits to overcome intrinsic limits of such organic fraction, including poor stability, fast conformational dynamics, or rapid reactivity in aqueous media. Herein, hybrid HA/ZnO nanoparticles are synthetized through a bottom-up strategy, exerting an improved pro-oxidant behavior by generating Reactive Oxygen Species, even without light irradiation, f avoring an enhanced photocatalytic and antimicrobial activity against different bacterial pathogens. Several techniques, including SEM/TEM, DLS, ζ-potential, XRD, FTIR, TGA/DSC, EPR and DRUV, allows to define the structure-property-function relationships, thus highlighting the crucial role of a fine conjugation amongst the metal oxide precursor and bioderived fraction to drive the pro-oxidant activity. This study provides strategic guidelines to easily produce low-cost organo-inorganic nanomaterials with redox and biocide properties, aimed at coping environmental and health issues. Graphical Abstract: ga1 Highlights: A bottom-up wet-chemical strategy leads to hybrid humic acid-ZnO nanomaterials. A molecular combination of precursors drives the colloidal and functional features. The supramolecular design of nanohybrids valorizes the biowaste-derived molecules. Nanostructured hybrid interfaces show high pro-oxidant and antibacterial activity. ROS generation in aqueous medium occurs even without light irradiation.