Respiratory pathogens kill more people than any other infectious agent each year worldwide. Development of novel, economically friendly, sustainable, and highly efficient materials against viruses is a major challenge. Herein, we describe a nanostructured material composed of very small crystalline phosphate copper nanoparticles synthesized using a new biohybrid technology that employs a biological agent for its formation at room temperature in aqueous media. The evaluation of different enzymes in the final preparation of the nanomaterial or even in synthetic methods was performed. Biochemical characterization revealed the formation of Cu species in the protein network. The best biomaterial synthesized using a lipase called BioCuNPs showed excellent inhibition capacity against functional proteins of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2); for example, assent 3-chymotrypsin like protease (3CLpro) complete inhibition was achieved by using 5 µg/mL, or acetone (ACE)–spike protein interaction was inhibited by more than 80% in the presence of 400 µg/mL of BioCuNPs. Taking these in vitro results into account, an efficacy analysis against human coronavirus 229E (HCoV-E229) coronavirus was performed. A virus reduction of 99% was obtained in 5 min. Additionally, SARS-CoV-2 virus was tested to demonstrate high efficiency, with > 99% inhibition in 15 min using 500 microgram of material. To determine the wide applicability of this nanohybrid against viruses, an evaluation was carried out against a non-enveloped virus such as Human Rhinovirus (HRV-14), obtaining a virus reduction of 99.9% in 5 min. Finally, the virucidal capacity against different bacteriophages was also evaluated, obtaining an excellent inhibition effect against Phage ΦX174 (99.999% reduction in 5 min).

The application of novel methodologies to the synthesis of nanomaterials is still a challenge in many different technological and scientific fields. New efficient and reproducible synthetic methodologies, that produce fewer residues and reduce the cost of raw materials must be developed. In the present work, we have explored the attractive possibility to apply the cheap iron (Ⅱ) sulphate salt in the reduction process of the K₂PtCl₄ to produce colloids suspensions. The synthesis took places in water and was assisted by sodium citrate (SC) using polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as a surfactant. The adjustment of this novelty process allows obtaining well-dispersed and sub-20 nm dendrimer-type platinum nanoparticles (Pt D-NPs). The nano-dendrimers produced have been characterized using dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high-resolution TEM (HR-TEM), XRD spectroscopy, inductive couple plasma (ICP) analysis, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectroscopy. Interesting conformational results derived from the size and shape will be discussed. Catalytic application of the Pt D-NPs has been explored in the reduction of p-nitrophenol (p-NP) to p-aminophenol (p-AP) in aqueous media at room temperature obtained TOF value of 253 min^-1. Finally, our Pt D-NPs were tested as artificial metalloenzyme showing catechol oxidase activity for oxidation of L-DOPA.