Research on the performance and mechanism of enhancing TiO2 antibacterial and photodriven sterilization by pyrite composition

Driven by market demand and resourcefulness of low-value minerals, the preparation of low-cost visible photocatalytic bactericidal materials has become a research hotspot. Here, a simple solvothermal method was constructed FeS2 photosensitized TiO2, which is a promising antibacterial and photocatalytic sterilization strategy. The disinfection efficiency of TiO2/FeS2 for Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) was 95.7 and 92.4%, respectively. In the darkness, TiO2/FeS2 could wrap around the surface of bacterial cells and significantly decrease their metabolic activity of bacterial cells of E. coli and S. aureus to 21.4% and 30.1%, respectively. Under the light irradiation, TiO2/FeS2 exhibited the light absorption feature of both TiO2 and FeS2. Meanwhile, an internal electric field from FeS2 to TiO2 was established to realize electron transmission, which as dominant role cooperating with the surface redox reaction, allowed TiO2/FeS2 produced obviously higher •OH, •O2–, and 1O2 to perform an ideal disinfection effect.