Photoelectrochemical Antibacterial Platform Based on Rationally Designed Black TiO_2-x Nanowires for Efficient Inactivation against Bacteria

A hyphenated strategy for photoelectrochemical (PEC) disinfection is proposed with rationally designed black TiO_2-xas a photoresponsive material. The PEC method, a fusion of electrochemistry and photocatalysis, is an innovative and effective way to improve photocatalytic performance, which imparts certain properties to the photoelectrode and greatly promotes the charge transfer, thus effectively inhibiting the recombination of carriers and greatly promoting the catalytic efficiency. The oxygen vacancy (V_o) engineering on TiO₂is conducted to obtain black TiO_2-x, which shows a much larger light absorption region in the full solar spectrum than the pristine white TiO₂and presents excellent PEC sterilization performance. The bactericidal efficiency with the PEC method is 10 times higher than that with the photocatalytic method, inactivating 99% of bacteria within a short time of 30 min. In addition, the black titanium oxide nanowires (B-TiO_2-xNWs) are grown on flexible carbon cloth (CC) to form a sandwich structural self-cleaning face mask. The bacteria adhering to the surface of the mask will be sterilized quickly and efficiently under the illumination of visible light. The face mask with the characteristics of superior antibacterial effect and long service lifetime will be used for epidemic prevention and reduce the second pollution.