Gram-positive bacteria are one of the most common pathogens causing severe and acute infection, and hospital infection caused by Gram-positive bacteria have increased significantly. Also, as antibiotics have been widely used, abusing of antibiotics is becoming an increasingly serious problem which is followed by dangerous drug resistance. Here, we developed a series of cationic carbon dots (CDs) with high-performance as antibacterial agents by using tartaric acid and m-aminophenol as precursors. The surface charge of these CDs can be regulated from +4.5 ± 0.42 mV to +33.2 ± 0.99 mV by increasing the contents of pyridine N and pyrrolic N in CDs. Further antibacterial experiments show that 250 μg mL−1 of CDs with +33.2 ± 0.99 mV can selectively kill Gram-positive bacteria and the antibacterial efficiency can reach approximately >99%. These CDs with positive surface charge can be selectively absorbed on the cell walls of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) via electrostatic interaction and then disturb their physiological metabolism, eventually leading to bacterial death. The present work provides a novel method to adjust the surface charge of CDs and apply these CDs as alternative antibacterial agents.
Humic acids (HAs) in water react with chlorine disinfectants and form carcinogenic chemicals. These molecules also inhibit environmental engineering processes aiming at the removal of toxic metals and organic contaminants from wastewater. For these reasons, low-cost adsorption strategies are being developed to take out HAs from water. Here, the metal oxide Bi 2 MoO 6 with either exposed [001] (BMO-001-Br) or [010] (BMO-010-Br) facets prepared with the cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) surfactant was evaluated for the adsorption of HAs. With a maximal adsorption capacity for HAs of 63.1 mg/g, BMO-001-Br nanosheets constituted a superior adsorbent capable of removing contaminants over a large pH range. BMO-001-Br was reusable and could separate HAs from multiple solutions including tap water, synthetic wastewater, and real pharmaceutical wastewater. The adsorption capacity of BMO-001-Br can be explained by its suitable specific surface area and its positive surface charge related to the presence of CTAB molecules attracting negatively charged HA molecules. A third feature of BMO-001-Br involved in HAs removal is a high abundance of oxygen vacancies, which are easier to form on a BMO surface with exposed crystal [001] facets. The notable performance of BMO-001-Br indicates that it can serve efficiently for the extraction of HAs from different aqueous solutions.