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Carbon-based nanomaterials have been widely developed into innovative antimicrobial agents due to their advantages of high surface-to-volume ratio, extremely high mechanical strength, and distinct physicochemical properties. Here, the nanocomposite of graphene oxide/graphitic carbon nitride (GO/g-C3N4), a free-metal photocatalyst, was fabricated through sonication at room temperature and its antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli (E. coli) was investigated. The 100 μg/mL GO/g-C3N4 composite was found to kill 97.9% of E. coli after 120 min visible light irradiation, which was further confirmed by fluorescent-based cell membrane integrity assay. Additionally, the holes produced by photocatalysis were confirmed by electron spin resonance (ESR) spectra and trapping experiments to participate in photocatalytic sterilization as principal active species and were further verified by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) to lead to the distortion and rupture of cell membrane and finally cell death. Further photoluminescence (PL) spectra, cyclic voltammetry, photocurrent generation, and impedance spectroscopy (EIS) characterization revealed that the introduction of GO contributed to separate photogenerated electrons and prevents the electron–hole pairs of g-C3N4 from recombing to generate more h+, thus directly improving the bactericidal ability of GO/g-C3N4. Reusability assays indicated that the GO/g-C3N4 retained more than 90% of activity after four cycles of use. This study facilitates an in-depth understanding of the mechanism of visible light-driven disinfection and provides an ideal candidate sterilizing agent for treating microbial-contaminated water.

Nanoparticle-based antibacterial agents have emerged as an interdisciplinary field involving medicine, material science, biology, and chemistry because of their size-dependent qualities, high surface-to-volume ratio, and unique physiochemical properties. Some of them have shown great promise for their application in plant protection and nutrition. Here, GO-AgNPs nanocomposite was fabricated through interfacial electrostatic self-assembly and its antifungal activity against phytopathogen Fusarium graminearum was investigated in vitro and in vivo for the first time. The results demonstrated that the GO-AgNPs nanocomposite showed almost a 3- and 7-fold increase of inhibition efficiency over pure AgNPs and GO suspension, respectively. The spore germination inhibition was stimulated by a relatively low concentration of 4.68 μg/mL (minimum inhibition concentration (MIC)). The spores and hyphae were damaged, which might be caused by an antibacterial mechanism from the remarkable synergistic effect of GO-AgNPs, inducing physical injury and chemical reactive oxygen species generation. More importantly, the chemical reduction of GO mediated by fungal spores was possibly contributed to the high antimicrobial activity of GO-AgNPs. Furthermore, the GO-AgNPs nanocomposite showed a significant effect in controlling the leaf spot disease infected by F. graminearum in the detached leaf experiment. All the results from this research suggest that the GO-AgNPs nanocomposite developed in this work has the potential as a promising material for the development of novel antimicrobial agents against pathogenic fungi or bacteria.

Using first-principles calculations, we present a comprehensive investigation of the structural trends of low dimensionality late 4d ͑from Tc to Ag͒ and 5d ͑from Re to Au͒ transition-metal systems including 13-atom clusters. Energetically favorable clusters not being reported previously are discovered by molecular-dynamics simulation based on the simulated annealing method. They allow a better agreement between experiments and theory for their magnetic properties. The structural periodic trend exhibits a nonmonotonic variation of the ratio of square to triangular facets for the two rows, with a maximum for Rh 13 and Ir 13 . By a comparative analysis of the relevant energetic and electronic properties performed on other metallic systems with reduced dimensionalities such as four-atom planar clusters, one-dimensional ͑1D͒ scales, double scales, 1D cylinders, monatomic films, two and seven layer slabs, we highlight that this periodic trend can be generalized. Hence, it appears that 1D-metallic nanocylinders or 1D-double nanoscales ͑with similar binding energies as TM 13 ͒ also favor square facets for Rh and Ir. We finally propose an interpretation based on the evolution of the width of the valence band and of the Coulombic repulsions of the bonding basins.

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