Preparation of novel Cu/TiO2 mischcrystal composites and antibacterial activities for Escherichia coli under visible light

In this paper, novel copper/titanium dioxide (Cu/TiO2) composites were facilely prepared by simple sol-gel hydrothermal method. The crystalline phases, surface morphology and antibacterial activity of Cu/TiO2 were investigated systematically. Interestingly, the as-prepared Cu/TiO2 materials were made up with three different crystalline phases, including cuprite Cu2Cl(OH)3, Cu2+1O, and anatase TiO2. Next, the 'zone of inhibition' experiment was performed against E. coli using Cu/TiO2 catalysts with different Cu doping concentration as the antibacterial agents. Our results show that the Cu/TiO2-3.00 catalyst possesses optimal antibacterial ability against E. coli, which may be connected with the strong oxidizing reactive oxygen species (ROS) destroying the bacteria and photogenerated charge separation and recombination.