Abstract

On a global scale, bacterial infection has become a huge threat to human health. Taking into consideration the increasing drug-resistance bacteria, it is urgent to develop novel nonantibiotics strategies to kill bacteria rapidly. Herein, Ag2S@WS2 was developed as a new kind of antibacterial agent, where exfoliated WS2 nanosheets were decorated with Ag2S nanoparticles through in situ growth. Under near-infrared (NIR) light irradiation (808 nm), the tight contact between Ag2S and WS2 endowed the composite with outstanding photocatalytic property, which was attributed to effective separation of photoactivated electronics and holes. Because of the synergistic effect of photocatalytic and photothermal properties, highly effective antibacterial efficacy could be achieved for Ag2S@WS2 within 20 min NIR light irradiation, that is, 99.93% toward Staphylococcus aureus and 99.84% toward Escherichia coli. Moreover, the in vitro cell culture test showed that the synthesized Ag2S@WS2 was noncytotoxic. These results demonstrate that Ag2S@WS2 can be a promising material for rapid and highly effective disinfection under NIR irradiation.