One-pot green solid-state synthesis of Cu2O/microcrystalline cellulose composite with high anti-pathogenic activity

Abstract

Abstract Cuprous oxide (Cu2O) is proven as an excellent anti-harmful microbial material. However, the liquid and vapor phase preparation methods reported so far hardly make pure Cu2O-containing composites and suffer environment issues caused by chemical reducing agents with multiple processing steps. This work develops a facile one-pot solid-state sintering method to synthesize Cu2O/microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) composite via the thermal decomposition and oxidation-reduction reactions where copper formate was reduced by MCC. The Cu2O/MCC composite exhibits superior purity, dispersibility, stability, high yield, and high efficacy of antibacterial and antiviral properties, e.g., against E. coli, S. aureus, and Equine Arteritis Viral. This work utilizes elegantly the strong reducing capability of cellulose to develop an environmentally benign method to prepare high purity Cu2O-polymer composites with low cytotoxicity and cost, which can be incorporated readily into other substrate materials to form various forms of anti-harmful microbial materials widely used in public health care products.