Electron-Withdrawing Hexagonal Boron Nitride as a Biocompatible and Metal-Free Antibacterial Platform
Inert hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is a prominent two-dimensional material known for its wide bandgap, thermal stability, and biocompatibility, but it resists functionalization due to strong B-N bonds. This study presents a method to fluorinate h-BN via cryomilling, resulting in ∼30 atom % fluorine loading (F-dBN). This modification prevents the formation of C-F bonds associated with adverse health effects, enhances biocompatibility, and introduces electron-withdrawing properties that improve the material's chemical reactivity and antibacterial efficiency while significantly reducing its bandgap from 5.77 to 3.64 eV. Using a microdroplet electrochemical setup, the charge transfer at the F-dBN-bacterium interface is amplified by osmotic pressure, showing that F moieties enhance extracellular electron transfer and disrupt bacterial charge balance. Notably, F-dBN exhibits >99% antibacterial activity against <i>Escherichia coli</i>, underscoring its potential as a biocompatible antibacterial platform and highlighting the microdroplet electrochemical method's utility for studying charge transfer dynamics in biological systems.
Authors
- Vijay Pandey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8704-0694)
- Yingcan Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3722-1248)
- Yu Lei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4693-7408)
- Lan Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6610-5871)
- Haoqi He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7873-4739)
- Qiangmin Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8970-487X)
- Feiyu Kang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3704-4379)
- Linxuan Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3038-923X)
- Hengyue Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4438-9647)
- Mauricio Terrones (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0010-2851)
- Wenbo Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5592-728X)
- Xudong Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3386-5890)
- Xi Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4093-0897)
- Yichao Bai
- Jianxiang Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1184-1523)
- Mingchuang Zhao
Institutions
- Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University (CN)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Hong Kong Baptist University (HK)
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- Dimensional Imaging (United Kingdom) (GB)
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory (CN)
- Tsinghua–Berkeley Shenzhen Institute (CN)
- Division of Materials Science and Engineering (AU)
- Double Helix (United States) (US)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2025-02-21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c05984
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- Graphene and Nanomaterials Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.70
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China