Enhanced Antibacterial Activity of CeO2 Nanoparticles by Surfactants
Abstract CeO2 nanoparticles (NPs) were tested to assess their toxicity on Escherichia coli strain in the presence of non-ionic surfactants. The NPs were dispersed in water by sonication at different pH values and times then mixed with three different surfactants (i.e., Triton X-100, Polyvinyl Pyrrolidone (PVP) and Tween 80) with a concentration of 0.001% v/v. It was found that sonication favored dispersion of the material and produced particles having 100 nm sizes in average. The material show toxicity to E. coli at pH 7 when growth using only minimal M9 media; no toxic response was observed for bacteria growth in rich media. The toxic effect in minimal media was enhanced by adding any of the non-ionic surfactants to the media. The use of CeO2 plus surfactant decreased the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) value of E. coli. The highest effect was observed for addition of Tween 80, in this case MIC value was 0.150 mg mL–1 compared to 3 mg mL–1 of CeO2 alone (almost 20 times improvement). These findings suggest the importance of different substances that can interact with NPs, like surfactants, usually present in wastewater systems that may lead to undesirable unexpected toxic characteristics in materials usually considered as innocuous.