Hydrothermally Synthesized CuO Powders for Photocatalytic Inactivation of Bacteria

TL;DRAbstract

Various morphologies of monoclinic CuO powders were synthesized by hydrothermal treatment of copper nitrate, copper acetate or copper sulfate. The synthesized samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diractometry, the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and diuse reectance spectrophotometry. Antibacterial activity of the samples was studied against Escherichia coli bacteria in dark and under visible light irradiation. Although the dierent precursors yielded the same band gap energies (1.6 eV) for the synthesized CuO samples, they resulted in various morphologies (hierarchy of stabilized micro/nanostructures), specic surface areas, concentrations of OH-surface groups, and visible light photocatalytic performances. The CuO nanorods synthesized from nitrate hydrothermal bath not only exhibited a considerable eective surface area, but also showed the highest concentration of absorbed OH-groups and subsequently, the strongest (photo)catalytic antibacterial prop

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