Mussel-Inspired Immobilization of Silver Nanoparticles toward Antimicrobial Cellulose Paper

Paper and paper products are widely used without any antimicrobial efficacy in our everyday lives and thus can act as potential transporters of many diseases. Herein, we introduce antimicrobial activity to cellulose paper by presenting a tailored mussel-inspired strategy for the sustainable immobilization of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), which are well-known for the effectiveness in preventing annexation and proliferation of microbes on materials surfaces. First, we functionalized the cellulose paper with succinic acid that eventually reacted with dopamine to give dopamine-modified paper. The dopamine molecules possess excellent adhesion and strong coordination with metal substrates through catechol groups offering a potentially robust interface between AgNPs and the organic structure of the paper. Next, AgNPs were deposited onto the paper by simply immersing dopamine-modified paper in a silver salt solution to accomplish the antimicrobial properties. Field emission scanning electron microscopic study of the synthesized antimicrobial papers confirmed that the loading of AgNPs was time-dependent, and the average size of the nanoparticles was in the range of 50-60 nm after 8 h of deposition time. The paper decorated with AgNPs showed excellent antimicrobial activity against highly virulent and multiple antibiotic resistant Grampositive and Gram-negative pathogenic bacteria as well as against some extremely virulent fungal phytopathogens.