Metal-free polymeric carbon nitride photocatalytic bactericide: precursor-controlled killing activity of E. coli

The photocatalytic sterilization activity of polymeric carbon nitride is closely related to its microstructure. In this study, four kinds of polymeric carbon nitride were prepared with melamine, dicyandiamine, thiourea and urea as precursors respectively. These polymeric carbon nitrides were similar in crystallinity and bonding, but differ significantly in texture, optical and photoelectrochemical properties. These changes resulted in different performances of polymeric carbon nitrides in their photocatalytic activities to kill E. coli. The polymeric carbon nitride prepared from urea exhibited significantly better photocatalytic antibacterial activity than other control samples. The advantage of the activity should be attributed to the synergy of many favorable factors, such as the shape of flake, large specific surface area, open pore structure, high valence band potential, low photogenerated carrier recombination rate, large photocurrent density and low electron transfer impedance. This study showed that urea-derived polymeric carbon nitride is very promising for the preparation advanced materials with higher photocatalytic sterilization activity.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC

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