NiP/CuO composites: electroless plating synthesis, antibiotic photodegradation and antibacterial properties

Abstract This work reports a simple method to prepare nickel-phosphorus (Ni-P) alloy modified CuO (Ni-P/CuO) composite, which shows excellent performance in terms of photodegradation antibiotics, particularly regarding the antibacterial properties. The Ni-P/CuO composites were prepared via two steps. The first step was to produce CuO by the hydrothermal method and the second step was to grow Ni-P in-situ on the surface of CuO through electroless plating. After loading of Ni-P, the photocatalytic activity of CuO for the decomposition of antibiotics is significantly increased under visible light irradiation. The photocatalytic activity of Ni-P/CuO with 4wt% Ni-P loading is 25 times higher than that of CuO. Compared with CuO, the antibacterial activity of Ni-P/CuO with 4wt% Ni-P loading against Escherichia coli is strongly increased. Based on the photoluminescence and photocurrent measurements of CuO and Ni-P/CuO, Ni-P cocatalyst improves the separation and transfer of the photogenerated charge in CuO, and enhances the photocatalytic activity of antibacterial performance. This work reveals that using Ni-P as the cocatalyst can strengthen the photocatalytic performance of CuO, which has great application potential in water purification and antibacterial treatments.