The rapid growth of bacterial contamination in drinking water is alarming, and yet a robust and cost effective method has not been developed. Contaminated drinking water has serious implications to the human health that could lead to death. The current study is aimed at evaluating the performance of nanoclay composites dispersed in chitosan biopolymer as an antibacterial composite for bacteria mainly found in water. The performances of the composites were evaluated using the equilibrium batch studies. Three types of composites such as Ag-clay/chitosan, ZnO-clay/chitosan and Ag-ZnO/clay/chitosan were processed and evaluated against gram negative escherichia coli and gram positive enterococcus faecalis bacteria. The composites were characterized by powder x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, Fourier transform infrared and BET surface area measurements. Antibacterial activity results showed that the composites can be a potent bactericide material for water disinfection as they are highly effective against both gram positive and gram negative bacteria tested. Whereas both composites of Ag-clay/chitosan and ZnO-clay/chitosan showed good antibacterial activity against bacteria, a better antibacterial activity was observed with Ag-ZnO/clay/chitosan composite. The results reveal that Ag-ZnO/clay/chitosan composite is a promising bactericide that is highly effective against both gram negative and gram positive bacteria tested and can therefore be used in diverse applications such as water treatment, medicine and food packaging.