Single Atom-Dispersed Silver Incorporated in ZIF-8-Derived Porous Carbon for Enhanced Photothermal Activity and Antibacterial Activities

Purpose: Recently, Single-atom-loaded carbon-based material is a new environmentally friendly and stable photothermal antibacterial nanomaterial. It is still a great challenge to achieve single-atom loading on carbon materials.Materials and Methods: Herein, We doped single-atom Ag into ZIF-8-derived porous carbon to obtain Ag-doped ZIF-8-derived porous carbon(AgSA-ZDPC). The as-prepared samples were characterized by XRD, XPS, FESEM, EDX, TEM, and HAADF-STEM which confirmed that the single-atom Ag successfully doped into the porous carbon. Further, the photothermal properties and antimicrobial activity of AgSA-ZDPC have been tested.Results: The results showed that the temperature increased by 30 °C after near-infrared light irradiation(1 W/cm2) for 5 min which was better than ZIF-8-derived porous carbon(ZDPC). It also exhibits excellent photothermal stability after the laser was switched on and off 5 times. When the AgSA-ZDPC concentration was greater than 50 μg/mL and the near-infrared irradiation was performed for 5 min, the growth inhibition of S. aureus and E. coli was almost 100%.Conclusion: This work provides a simple method for the preparation of single-atom Ag-doped microporous carbon which has potential antibacterial application.