Rice husk based porous carbon loaded with silver nanoparticles by a simple and cost-effective approach and their antibacterial activity

In this paper, we chose rice husk as raw material and synthesized successfully porous carbon loaded with silver nanoparticles (RH-Ag) composites by simple and cost-effective method. The as-prepared RH-Ag composites have a BET-specific surface area of 1996 m(2) g(-1) and result in strong capacity of bacteria adsorption. The result of antibacterial study indicated that the RH-Ag system displayed antibacterial activity that was two times better than pure Ag NPs. Our study demonstrates that the antibacterial activity of RH-Ag composites may be attributed to their strong adsorption ability with bacteria and result in the disorganization of the bacterial membrane ultrastructure. In addition, RH-Ag system was found to be durative slow-releasing of silver ions and biocompatible for human skin keratinocytes cells. In terms of these advantages, the RH-Ag composites have potential application in antibacterial infections and therapy. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.