Plasmonic silver loaded hybrid Bi-Ag nanoalloys for highly efficient disinfection by enhancing photothermal performance and interface capability

Environmental pollution caused by bacterial infection poses a serious threat to human society. The emergence of high-performance antibacterial agents needs to be continuedly explored. Herein, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) silver-loaded hybrid photothermal-catalyst Bi-Ag nanoparticles (Bi-Ag NPs) were designed to solve the bacterial problems. The Bi-Ag NPs can effectively utilize their advantages to maximize the use of light energy. Meanwhile, the localized surface plasmon resonance and hybrid structure can be employed as a thermal reflector that not only relieves effectively the recombination of photonic electrons to promote photothermocatalytic ac-tivity but also the photothermal conversion efficiency was expanded to nearly 1.5 times compared to the single Bi NPs. Interestingly, the hybrid Bi-Ag NPs exhibit greatly fascinating ability in the bacterial capture, which is more conducive to the elimination of bacteria owing to the strong photoactivation effect at a high contact interface between bacteria and the Bi-Ag NPs. The synthesized Bi-Ag NPs performed the photothermal-catalytic anti-bacterial and purification, and further provided an inspired insight for the investigation of photothermal-catalytic nanomaterials in environmental fields.

Automated summary

This study introduces the design of Bi-Ag nanoparticles with high antibacterial properties and great potential in bacterial capture and elimination. The nanoparticles also contribute significantly to improving photothermal conversion efficiency and photothermocatalytic activity.