Co3O4/hydrogen titanate composite nanomaterials with enhanced enzyme-like activity for antibacterial application

Co3O4/hydrogen titanate (HTO) nanocomposites were prepared though a facile dissolution-reprecipitation method and post alkaline hydrothermal treatment. Compared with pure Co3O4, as-designed Co3O4/HTO cata-lyst with optimum Ti/Co ratio showed highly enhanced peroxidase-like activity that can catalyze H2O2 to pro-duce more reactive oxygen species. The enhanced enzyme-like catalytic performance was contributed to the HTO sheets that prevent the agglomeration of Co3O4 nanoparticles during the preparation, and thus expose more catalytic active sites. As a result, the bacteriostatic efficiencies of the catalyst against E. coli with the presence of 1 mM H2O2 is about 2 times higher than that without H2O2 addition, exhibiting an excellent bacteriostatic activity.