A Facile Method to Produce Silver Nanoparticle-Loaded Regenerated Cellulose Membranes via the Reduction of Silver Nitrate in a Homogeneous System

Regenerated cellulose (RC) membranes loaded with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were prepared in this study. Cellulose acted as a reducing agent, silver nitrate acted as an oxidizing agent, and Nmethylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO) acted as a direct cellulose solvent. The AgNP-loaded RC membranes were obtained via the redox reaction between cellulose and silver nitrate. The results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis suggest that AgNPs were reduced on the RC membranes during the dissolution and regeneration of cellulose. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) showed that the RC membranes exhibited high surface roughness, with a value of 7.19 nm. The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) results demonstrated that the crystal lattice type of RC membranes changed from cellulose I to cellulose II, without any derivatization. The detection results of atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) indicated that the silver content of the RC membranes increased with increasing silver nitrate solution concentration. Antibacterial experiments showed that the AgNP-loaded RC membranes exhibited good antibacterial properties with respect to both Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus.