We have presented a comparative study of silver nanoparticles (NPs) and corona discharge for decomposition of Eosin Y (EY) as a model dye and bactericidal activity of a series of gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria as representative microorganisms. Despite the fact that silver NPs demonstrate a great antibacterial activity, corona discharge process showed a significant decrease in survived bacteria in a few minutes. Furthermore, the results revealed that corona discharge at ambient air significantly enhanced degradation rate of model dye compared to silver NPs. Dye removal was about 88% after 10 min in corona discharge process compared to 36% dye removal after 2 h in the presence of silver NPs. It was suggested that corona discharge treatment, which is based on the most efficient energetic species, was more powerful than silver NPs in environmental and antibacterial applications which shown potential to kill different bacteria and degrade EY dye in less than 10 min.
