Digest Journal of Nanomaterials and Biostructures Vol. 5, No 3, July-September 2010, p. 787-796 NANO SILVER-COATED POLYPROPYLENE WATER FILTER: I. MANUFACTURE BY ELECTRON BEAM GUN USING A MODIFIED BALZERS 760 MACHINE F. HEIDARPOUR, W. A. WAN AB. KARIM GHANI, F. R. BIN AHMADUN, S. SOBRI, M. ZARGAR a , M. R. MOZAFARI a,b* Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University Putra Malaysia, 43400 Darul Ehsan, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. a Department of Food Science, Faculty of Food Science and Technology, University Putra Malaysia, 43400 Darul Ehsan, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. b Department of Nanotechnology, Faculty of Advanced Science and Technology in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. As adequate freshwater supplies decrease steadily, novel technologies are required for water purification. Nanotechnology, a new scientific frontier, promises to revolutionize innovation in many industries. Advancements in nanotechnology are being applied in the water-purification industry to keep harmful bacteria out of drinking water. Due to its bactericidal properties, nano silver is used in many products as an antibacterial. This study aimed to produce a nano silver-coated water-treatment polypropylene filter via the physical vapor deposition method using the Balzers 760 machine equipped with an electron beam gun ESQ 110. The Balzers machine was modified in order to enable coating of the cylindrical filters in a homogenous manner. The nano silver particles were made by electron beam bombardment of the silver metal, which were subsequently deposited on the polypropylene filter evenly. The thickness of the nano layer coated on the filter was about 55.0nm in average, as revealed by the microprocessor unit of the Balzers machine during the coating process. The thickness of the nano layer and the chemical composition of the produced filters were studied by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and the X-ray diffraction technique. The filter system produced in this work has the potential to be used as an efficient and cost-effective water treatment method. The inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry (ICP/MS) studies revealed that there was no nano silver particle present in the filtered water sample. Hence, there is no risk of contamination of drinking water with the silver nano particles upon application of the manufactured filters. This is the first report on the manufacture of nano silver-coated cylindrical polypropylene filter using the electron beam gun technique. (Received July 9, 2010; accepted September 28, 2010) Keywords: Nano silver, Electron beam gun, Balzers machine, Polypropylene filter, XRD, SEM, AFM. 1. Introduction Nanotechnology is emerging as a rapidly growing scientific field for the purpose of manufacturing new materials, with novel properties, at the nanoscale level [1]. Nanomaterials often show unique and considerably different physical, chemical and biological characteristics compared to their macro-scaled counterparts [2]. It is known that the decrease of the size of metal particles to 100 nm and below significantly affects their physico-chemical properties, including catalytic effects [3–6]. The metallic nanoparticles also show good bactericidal properties due to their large surface area to volume ratio. They are very promising antibacterials especially considering the growing microbial resistance against antibiotics and the development of resistant * Corresponding author: m.reza.mozafari@gmail.com