Adhesion of Escherichia coli to nano-Fe/Al oxides and its effect on the surface chemical properties of Fe/Al oxides

We investigated the adhesion of Escherichia coli to α-Fe2O3 and γ-Al2O3 and the effects of adhesion on the surface properties of the oxides in batch experiments, where we conducted potentiometric titration, zeta potential measurements, and FTIR spectroscopy. The adhesion isotherms fitted a Langmuir equation well. γ-Al2O3 had a higher adhesion capacity than α-Fe2O3 because of the higher positive charge on γ-Al2O3. The adhesion of E. coli to Fe/Al oxides decreased with increasing pH. Adhesion increased with increasing NaCl concentration, reaching its maximum at 0.05 M for α-Fe2O3 and at 0.1 M for γ-Al2O3, after which it decreased with further increases in NaCl concentration. Therefore, the electrostatic force plays an important role in the adhesion of E. coli to Fe/Al oxides. The zeta potential–pH curves of the binary-system fell between that for bacteria and those for Fe/Al oxides. Thus, overlapping of the diffuse layers of the electric double layers on the negatively-charged E. coli and positively-charged Fe/Al oxides reduced the effective surface charge density of the minerals and bacteria. E. coli adhesion decreased the point of zero salt effect and the isoelectric point of the Fe/Al oxides. The FTIR spectra indicated that non-electrostatic force also contributed to the interaction between E. coli and Fe/Al oxides, in addition to the electrostatic force between them.