Oxidative Dissolution of Silver Nanoparticles by Chlorine: Implications to Silver Nanoparticle Fate and Toxicity

The kinetics of oxidative dissolution of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) by chlorine is investigated in this work, with results showing that AgNPs are oxidized in the presence of chlorine at a much faster rate than observed in the presence of dioxygen and/or hydrogen peroxide. The oxidation of AgNPs by...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnvironmental science & technology Vol. 50; no. 7; pp. 3890 - 3896
Main Authors Garg, Shikha, Rong, Hongyan, Miller, Christopher J, Waite, T. David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Chemical Society 05.04.2016
Subjects
Anti-Bacterial Agents - chemistry
Anti-Bacterial Agents - pharmacology
Chlorine
Chlorine - chemistry
Detergents - chemistry
Dissolution
Hydrogen Peroxide
Kinetics
Metal Nanoparticles - chemistry
Metal Nanoparticles - toxicity
Nanoparticles
Oxidation
Oxidation-Reduction
Oxygen - chemistry
Silver
Silver - chemistry
Silver - pharmacology
Silver - toxicity
Solubility
Toxicity
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Summary:The kinetics of oxidative dissolution of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) by chlorine is investigated in this work, with results showing that AgNPs are oxidized in the presence of chlorine at a much faster rate than observed in the presence of dioxygen and/or hydrogen peroxide. The oxidation of AgNPs by chlorine occurs in air-saturated solution in stoichiometric amounts with 2 mol of AgNPs oxidized for each mole of chlorine added. Dioxygen plays an important role in OCl–-mediated AgNP oxidation, especially at lower OCl– concentrations, with the mechanism shifting from stoichiometric oxidation of AgNPs by OCl– in the presence of dioxygen to catalytic removal of OCl– by AgNPs in the absence of dioxygen. These results suggest that the presence of chlorine will mitigate AgNP toxicity by forming less-reactive AgCl(s) following AgNP oxidation, although the disinfection efficiency of OCl– may not be significantly impacted by the presence of AgNPs because a chlorine-containing species is formed on OCl– decay that has significant oxidizing capacity. Our results further suggest that the antibacterial efficacy of nanosilver particles embedded on fabrics may be negated when treated with detergents containing strong oxidants, such as chlorine.
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ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.6b00037