Oxygen-defective MnO2/ZIF-8 nanorods with enhanced antibacterial activity under solar light

• MnO 2 /ZIF-8 nanocomposite was first reported as solar light-activated bactericidal agent. • The rich surface oxygen vacancies contribute mainly to the high photocatalytic performance of MnO 2 /ZIF-8. • 1 O 2 was demonstrated to be the main reactive species for bacterial inactivation. • A mechanism for the light activated antibacterial activity of MnO 2 /ZIF-8 was proposed. Low-cost MnO 2 has been vigorously investigated in the field of catalysis. However, high amount of MnO 2 usually needs to be used in the disinfection process owing to their low photocatalytic activity. In this work, modification of MnO 2 with zeolitic imidazole framework-8 (ZIF-8) for improving the photocatalytic bactericidal performance was explored for the first time. Specifically, MnO 2 /ZIF-8 exhibited complete inactivation of multi-drug resistant Escherichia coli ( E. coli) at a low concentration (3.24 μg/mL) with simulated solar irradiation. The 1 O 2 rather than O 2 − or OH was identified as the major reactive species for the bacterial inactivation. Mechanistic studies indicated that the superior bactericidal property of MnO 2 /ZIF-8 than the pristine material could be ascribed to the increased surface oxygen vacancies (OVs) amount and an inhibited electron and hole recombination. This study provides a novel type of photocatalyst for antibacterial application and may shed light on designing MnO 2 based low-cost nanocomposites with photocatalytic bactericidal capability for the practical water disinfection treatment.