Construction of a g-C 3 N 4 /Bi(OH) 3 Heterojunction for the Enhancement of Visible Light Photocatalytic Antibacterial Activity

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences 2024-02, Vol.25 (3)
• Main Authors: Feng, Jian, Wang, Li, Xiao, Bo, Ran, Xia, Wang, Caiying, Zhu, Jinming, Liu, Zuoji, Li, Chaozhong, Cui, Xinai, Li, Rong, Feng, Guangwei, Dai, Zeqin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1422-0067

Photocatalytic technology has been recently conducted to remove microbial contamination due to its unique features of nontoxic by-products, low cost, negligible microbial resistance and broad-spectrum elimination capacity. Herein, a novel two dimensional (2D) g-C N /Bi(OH) (CNB) heterojunction was fabricated byincorporating Bi(OH) (BOH) nanoparticles with g-C N (CN) nanosheets. This CNB heterojunction exhibited high photocatalytic antibacterial efficiency (99.3%) against ( ) under visible light irradiation, which was 4.3 and 3.4 times that of BOH (23.0%) and CN (28.0%), respectively. The increase in specific surface area, ultra-thin layered structure, construction of a heterojunction and enhancement of visible light absorption were conducive to facilitating the separation and transfer of photoinduced charge carriers. Live/dead cell staining, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) assays and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) have been implemented to investigate the damage to the cell membrane and the leakage of the intracellular protein in the photocatalytic antibacterial process. The e , h and O were the active species involved in this process. This study proposed an appropriate photocatalyst for efficient treatment of bacterial contamination.