Preparation, degradation and antibacterial properties of Ag3PO4/CeO2

Ag3PO4/CeO2 composites were synthesized with loading Ag source on CeO2 which was prepared by calcination by one-step precipitation. The structure of Ag3PO4/CeO2 material was characterized and analyzed by different testing methods. At the same time, the degradation effect of the material on the simulated organic pollutant Rhodamine B and the antibacterial effect of the material on E. coli were investigated by antibacterial growth curve, colony number and other experiments. The experimental results showed that the degradation rate on 30 mL 40 mg/L Rhodamine B solution by Ag3PO4/CeO2 composites was 99.91 %, which was 6.34 times and 1.67 times that of CeO2 and Ag3PO4, respectively. The order of antibacterial activity of different materials was: Ag3PO4/CeO2 > Ag3PO4> CeO2. Combined with the photocatalytic free radical quenching experiment, Ag3PO4/CeO2 mainly produced h+ and ·O2 - in the degradation process, and photocatalytic materials could produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and corresponding metal ions during the antibacterial process, and released them to attack the cell wall of E. coli, resulting cytoplasm leakage, and thus leading to cell apoptosis.