Straightforward microwave-assisted synthesis of ultrasmall gold nanoparticles acnhored on reduced graphene oxide for enhanced antibacterial application

Graphene derivative materials, such as graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO), have garnered significant attention from scientists for over two decades due to their distinctive characteristics and versatile applications across various fields, particularly in biomedical applications. Incorporating gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) into rGO sheets as rGO-Au nanocomposites further enhances its performance in biomedical applications. This study presents a rapid and efficient method for synthesizing ultrasmall AuNPs anchored on reduced graphene oxide (rGO-Au) using microwave irradiation and ascorbic acid. The optimum microwave treatment was 4 min, ensuring the highest GO reduction degree. Structural characterization by TEM reveals a distinctive architecture with ultrasmall AuNPs (average size of 2.2 nm) distributed on the rGO sheets. Interestingly, while the synthesized rGO-Au did not exhibit any antibacterial activities against both Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus in disk diffusion assays, it demonstrated bacteriostatic effect at remarkably low concentrations when assessed by optical density measurement. The effective concentration of rGO-Au to inhibit E. coli growth was determined to be 2.5 ppm, while for S. aureus, it was 5 ppm, resulting in growth inhibition of 53.1% and 50.0%, respectively. These findings provide a straightforward synthesis route for rGO-Au nanocomposites and underscore the importance of AuNPs’ size and quantity in modulating antibacterial properties.