Plasmon induced enhancement of photoinduced antibacterial activity of graphene quantum dots

Abstract

Due to the exponential growth of bacterial infection as well as resistance toward most antibiotics, the development of new materials for treatment is urgently needed. In recent years, graphene quantum dots (GQDs) have been identified as promising carbon nanomaterial for eco-friendly antibacterial applications due to their optical and chemical stability, non-toxicity, and biocompatibility. One of the reported GQD’s antimicrobial mechanisms is the photo-induced production of singlet oxygen (1O2). Under light exposure, GQDs transfer the energy to molecular oxygen from the surrounding medium. Oxygen molecules transform to their excited form 1O2, which causes oxidative stress in bacterial cells and reduces their viability. In this study, pristine GQDs were produced in an easy, one-step electrochemical top-down approach using graphite electrodes as a starting material. Carboxyl groups of GQDs are modified using a carbodiimide coupling reaction catalyzed by 1-ethyl-3- (3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide (EDC), with ethylenediamine (EDA) as an amine. In the next step, these NH2 terminated dots were decorated with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) by the same EDC coupling procedure. Abillity of GQDs-AuNP nanocomposite to generate singlet oxygen upon blue light (470 nm) was investigated by UV-Vis spectroscopy and 9,10- anthracenediylbis-(methylene)dimalonic acid (ABDA) as selective 1O2 traping agent. After 2 hours of blue light illumination, the band at 420 nm charachterisic for ABDA was completly disaperided only in the presence of the GQD-AuNPs indicating good prooxidative potential of composite. Photoinduced antibacterial effects of GQD-AuNPs were studied using minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) test which showed great antibacterial activity against several bacterial strains.