Unexpectedly high antibacterial ability of water in copper pot with tiny amount of plant leaves.

ABSTRACT: Water disinfection by copper vessels has been prevalent over thousands of years. Unfortunately, people are still suffering from the bacterial pollution in drinking water. Here we show that, only through steeping with tiny amounts of common plant leaves, the room-temperature water in copper pots has unexpectedly high antibacterial ability. Remarkably, copper ions released from copper pots into water are in concentrations lower than the WHO safety threshold for drinking water, and have effective antibacterial ability when water contains specific leave components (polyphenols and/or lignin). Our computations show that the key to enhance antibacterial ability is the great increase in the proportion of Cu⁺ induced by aromatic rings in these leave components, which has been demonstrat

SUBMITTER: Zhang M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11327398 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature