Hierarchically structured Ag modified nanosilica constructed by micelle modification tactics delivers integrated catalytic and antibacterial activity

Abstract The complexity of environmental pollution poses a severe threat to public health, attracting considerable interest in the search for functional nanomaterials for dye removal and direct disinfection together in wastewater. Herein, we present a deft synthetic strategy for constructing Ag functionalized hierarchically structured nanosilica (Ag modified mesoporous silica/Ag-ms) using micelle termination incorporating Ag ions as a functional metallomicelle template. The results showed that multiple active Ag cores were decorated into silica nanospheres. The resulting silica has ultrahigh porous properties (1370 m2·g-1, 1.583 m3·g-1) which are much superior to those of reports, thereby could make it a superior catalyst and disinfector. The obtained nanocomposites were carefully characterized using various advanced techniques to identify their special configuration and status of silver nanospecies in the silica. In addition, the cell viability test via cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay displayed good biocompatibility of obtained Ag-ms, suggesting its promising candidate possibility for biomedical applications. Furthermore, the rapid catalytic reduction of methylene blue (MB) was easily enabled by the optimized Ag-ms (0.15 Ag-ms) within 5 min, which exhibited great catalytic kinetic properties (4.059 min-1·mg-1). Our results also showed that 0.15Ag-ms had superior antibacterial properties against gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa, gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus, and even multidrug-resistant (MDR) strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis compared to other counterparts (0.05 Ag-ms and 0.1 Ag-ms), which affords great value for reducing antibiotic-resistant bacteria and nosocomial infections.