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Morphology-dependent antimicrobial activity of Cu/CuxO nanoparticles

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Abstract

Cu/CuxO nanoparticles (NPs) with different morphologies have been synthesized with glucose as a reducing agent. The X-ray diffraction and Scanning electron microscopy imaging show that the Cu/CuxO NPs have fine crystalline peaks with homogeneous polyhedral, flower-like, and thumbtack-like morphologies. Their antimicrobial activities were evaluated on inactivation of Escherichia coli using a fluorescence-based live/dead staining method. Dissolution of copper ions from these NPs was determined. Results demonstrated a significant growth inhibition for these NPs with different morphologies, and the flower-like Cu/CuxO NPs were the most effective form, where more copper ions were dissolved into the culture media. Surface free energy calculations based on first-principle density functional theory show that different crystal facets of the copper NPs have diverse surface energy, indicating the highest reactivity of the flower-like NPs, which is consistent with the results from the dissolution study and antimicrobial activity test. Together, these results suggest that the difference between the surface free energy may be a cause for their morphology-dependent antimicrobial activity.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the NSFC (21477121), Hefei Center for Physical Science and Technology (2014FXCX010), the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University, and Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology for the partial support of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, Department of Chemistry, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Lu Xiong, Zhong-Hua Tong, Jie-Jie Chen, Ling-Li Li & Han-Qing Yu

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  1. Lu Xiong
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  2. Zhong-Hua Tong
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  3. Jie-Jie Chen
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  4. Ling-Li Li
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Correspondence to Zhong-Hua Tong.

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Xiong, L., Tong, ZH., Chen, JJ. et al. Morphology-dependent antimicrobial activity of Cu/CuxO nanoparticles. Ecotoxicology 24, 2067–2072 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1554-1

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