Characterization and anti-microbial properties of Graphene/Single-walled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

The primary purpose of this research is to determine the antimicrobial activity of functionalized Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWNT) using the extract from Hempedu bumi plant. It was evaluated for the biological activities on Bacillus sp., Aspergillus niger and Escherichia coli. SWNT is nanosized graphite which is believed that it has the antimicrobial activity. It can destroy the wall of bacteria and release the DNA content of bacteria by sharp edge. The formations of inhibition zones were found to evident the importance of the functionalized SWNT by H. bumi with the optimum volume of 35 μl and shown the greatest cleared zone of inhibition. For E. coli, the result showed 1.1 cm and 1.0 cm for Bacillus while 1.5 cm for A. niger. Further, morphological and structural analyses have been undergone to understand the functionalized SWNT using few analyses. From the analysis of scanning electron microscope, it can be shown that the structure of SWNT were fine and align naturally into “ropes” together by Weak Van der Waals forces of attraction while in analysis of atomic Force microscope, it can be clearly observed the structure especially in Z-axis which was with the height direction of 300 μm and X-Z axes view direction at 45 angle. X-axis has maximum of 0.5 μm/div while Z-axis has 300 μm/div. From the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis, it can be observed that there are 4 peaks which is peak area percentage for C-C is 95.87 %, C-O has 3.08 %, NSi2O has 0.73 % and metal iodides have 0.32 % while the total percentage is 100 %. Lastly, it has the highest peak of the analysis located at 15.9 with 393 intensity in X-ray powder diffraction analysis.