Self-assembled nanostructure of copper hydrogen phosphate with catalytic and antibacterial activity

The rapid development of antibiotic resistance poses a huge threat to human health. Copper-based materials is a promising alternative to the traditional antibiotics due to its high efficacy and low resistance potential for bacterial infections. In this work, three-dimensional flower-like copper hydrogen phosphate nanosheet assembled microspheres (CP-NSMSs) are synthesized through a hydrolysis-assisted synthetic method using fructose-1,6-diphosphate (FDP) as the organic phosphate source. The copper hydrogen phosphate nanosheets with high aspect ratio provide a large amount of sharp edges which could penetrate bacterial membranes, resulting in the death of bacteria. Furthermore, the as-prepared CP-NSMSs exhibit the high peroxidase-like activity producing a large amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) to kill bacteria. Based on the in vitro bacterial growth experiments, our CP-NSMSs show an excellent sterilization effect against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Therefore, the CP-NSMSs synthesized using the FDP as an organic phosphate source is expected to be a promising antibacterial agent with minimum resistance potential.