Red phosphorus decorated In₂O₃ hollow fiber heterostructures for boosting white LED driven photocatalytic bacterial inactivation

Photocatalytic water bacterial inactivation is a promising strategy for microorganism removal from water, but the fabrication of efficient visible light-driven photocatalytic disinfection materials remains a challenge. Herein, In₂O₃/red phosphorus (In₂O₃/RP) hollow fibers were created through a chemical vapor deposition strategy to enhance photocatalytic water disinfection efficiency. The optimized In₂O₃/RP heterostructure exhibited rapid and effective bacterial inactivation of Escherichia coli (7-log CFU·mL⁻¹) within 10 min under white light-emitting device (LED) illumination. The enhanced photocatalytic bacterial inactivation performance can be attributed to the synergistic improvement in light absorption by RP decoration, as well as the enhanced charge separation and migration capacity at the interface between RP and In₂O₃. This led to the more unpaired photogenerated carriers transfer to the photocatalysts surface, thus promoting the production of photoexcited holes, ·O₂⁻, and ·OH radicals essential for efficient destruction of bacterial cells.