▎ 摘　　要

NOVELTY - Method for preparing a semi-metal material tellurium nanowire/graphene hydrogel composite material, involves (a) adding aqueous ammonia and a hydrazine hydrate solution as a reducing agent to an aqueous solution of sodium tellurite and polyvinylpyrrolidone, uniformly mixing, and performing hydrothermal synthesis reaction at a temperature of 180-200 degrees C for 5-15 hours, (b) cooling the reaction product to room temperature, separating the reaction product to obtain a precipitate, washing the precipitate until neutral, and dry grinding to obtain tellurium nanowires, and (c) preparing a graphene oxide suspension, adding the tellurium nanowires, uniformly mixing, reacting the mixed solution at a temperature of 60-80 degrees C for 12-24 hours, removing excess graphene oxide and tellurium nanowires that are not tightly combined, and freeze-drying, where the obtained composite material contains 5-20 %mass tellurium nanowires. USE - The method is used for preparing a semi-metal material tellurium nanowire/graphene hydrogel composite material, which is useful for preparing a photothermal catalyst for photothermal sterilization of Escherichia coli (all claimed). ADVANTAGE - The composite material has a simple preparation process, and excellent photocatalytic sterilization and photothermal conversion performance, promotes thermocatalytic sterilization by the synergistic effect of light and heat, where the inactivation rate is 70-100%, and does not require additional chemical reagent, thus effectively solving the problem of secondary pollution of by-products of existing disinfection technology. DETAILED DESCRIPTION - INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are included for the following: (1) the composite material prepared by the above method; and (2) the use of composite material for photothermal sterilization.