Tribocatalytic sterilization of BN2/CN Z-type heterojunctions

Considering advanced oxidation techniques offer new opportunities for microbial degradation and inactivation, in this study, Z-type heterojunctions of Ba1.4Sr3.6NdNb7Ti3O30-N2/g-C3N4 (BN2/CN) were successfully prepared using a solid-phase method and explored for their potential applications in tribocatalytic bactericidal inhibition. These results demonstrate that BN2/CN exhibits excellent inhibitory and inactivating effects on E. coli under tribocatalytic conditions. The UV–visible spectrum showed a gradual decrease in the survival rate of E. coli with the increase of tribocatalysis time, reaching an inactivation effect of 91% after 1 h, while fluorescence staining also confirmed that E. coli were essentially eliminated, with hardly any surviving bacteria observed under a laser confocal microscope. Hence, this study presents a novel catalytic approach for sterilization. Moreover, inhibition experiments demonstrated that the BN2/CN catalyst did not inhibit the growth of E. coli, tribocatalysis played a crucial role in the disinfection and sterilization processes. The inactivation of bacteria by BN2/CN catalyst was still above 90% after multiple cycles of sterilization experiments. Finally, we demonstrated that the production of •OH and •O2- during tribocatalysis is key to the inactivation of E. coli, thus achieving the desired effect of tribocatalytic sterilization.