TY  - JOUR
AU  - Vitiello, Giuseppe
AU  - Venezia, Virginia
AU  - Verrillo, Mariavittoria
AU  - Nuzzo, Assunta
AU  - Houston, Judith
AU  - Cimino, Stefano
AU  - D'Errico, Gerardino
AU  - Aronne, Antonio
AU  - Paduano, Luigi
AU  - Piccolo, Alessandro
AU  - Luciani, Giuseppina
TI  - Hybrid humic acid/titanium dioxide nanomaterials as highly effective antimicrobial agents against gram(−) pathogens and antibiotic contaminants in wastewater
JO  - Environmental research
VL  - 193
SN  - 0013-9351
CY  - San Diego, Calif.
PB  - Elsevier
M1  - FZJ-2021-05477
SP  - 110562 -
PY  - 2021
AB  - Humic acids (HAs) provide an important bio-source for redox-active materials. Their functional chemical groups are responsible for several properties, such as metal ion chelating activity, adsorption ability towards small molecules and antibacterial activity, through reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. However, the poor selectivity and instability of HAs in solution hinder their application. A promising strategy for overcoming these disadvantages is conjugation with an inorganic phase, which leads to more stable hybrid nanomaterials with tuneable functionalities. In this study, we demonstrate that hybrid humic acid/titanium dioxide nanostructured materials that are prepared via a versatile in situ hydrothermal strategy display promising antibacterial activity against various pathogens and behave as selective sequestering agents of amoxicillin and tetracycline antibiotics from wastewater. A physicochemical investigation in which a combination of techniques were utilized, which included TEM, BET, 13C-CPMAS-NMR, EPR, DLS and SANS, shed light on the structure-property-function relationships of the nanohybrids. The proposed approach traces a technological path for the exploitation of organic biowaste in the design at the molecular scale of multifunctional nanomaterials, which is useful for addressing environmental and health problems that are related to water contamination by antibiotics and pathogens.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - 33271143
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000613938200001
DO  - DOI:10.1016/j.envres.2020.110562
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/903844
ER  -