Single-atom doping in carbon black nanomaterials for photothermal antibacterial applications

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The growing problem of antimicrobial resistance has become a serious threat to human health. Loading single atoms onto carbon-based materials is a new strategy to develop environmentally friendly and stable photothermal antibacterial nanomaterials. We report the successful synthesis of carbon black nanomaterials doped with copper single atoms, nickel single atoms, and gold single atoms of similar mass concentration guided by theoretical calculations. The introduction of metal single atoms fundamentally changed the electronic structure of the original carbon black and resulted in high photothermal properties and antibacterial activity. Among these antimicrobial materials, the copper-doped material is more active than the other two, which is consistent with our theoretical calculations. Also, the combination of theoretical calculations and experimental validation suggests an intrinsic mechanism of bactericidal activity. This strategy has the potential to be extended to other single-atom doped systems with improved photothermal properties. • Demonstration that metal single atoms can improve photothermal antibacterial properties • Design of metal-single-atom-loaded materials is guided by theoretical calculations • Synthetic carbon-based materials are low cost, biocompatible, and NIR responsible Yang et al. develop low-cost carbon black nanomaterials loaded with metal single atoms for photothermal antimicrobial applications. Guided by theoretical calculations, metal single atoms are employed to modulate the electronic structure of carbon black. As predicted, the photothermal performance is substantially improved and highly dependent on the metal element.