Biosynthesized Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles as Efficient Photocatalytic and Antimicrobial Agent

• Published in: Journal of cluster science 2022-11, Vol.33 (6), p.2551-2558
• Main Authors: Goyal, Vikas, Singh, Arashdeep, Singh, Jagpreet, Singh, Tarandip, Al-Kheraif, Abdulaziz A., Kaur, Harpreet, Kumar, Sanjeev, Rawat, Mohit
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antimicrobial agents; Catalysis; Catalytic activity; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Coliforms; Crystallites; Drug resistance; Dyes; E coli; Energy gap; Excitons; Flavonoids; Fourier transforms; Infrared spectroscopy; Inorganic Chemistry; Morphology; Nanochemistry; Nanomaterials; Nanoparticles; Nanostructured materials; Original Paper; Pathogens; Photocatalysis; Photodegradation; Physical Chemistry; Polyphenols; Quantum confinement; Spectrum analysis; Textiles; Toxicity; Zinc oxide; Zinc oxides
• ISSN: 1040-7278; 1572-8862
• DOI: 10.1007/s10876-021-02108-2

This work reports an innovative, effortless and inexpensive method for the preparation of ZnO nanoparticles by green approach using leaf extract of Piper betle as a reducing-stabilizing negotiator. The prepared ZnO NPs were characterized through XRD, FTIR, UV–Visible spectroscopy, and EDX etc. The band gap energy of the sample was estimated as 3.41 eV which is larger than the bulk ZnO (E g  = 3.37 eV). The observed blue shift is attributed to the quantum confinement of excitons. FTIR analysis showed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, polyphenols, and terpenoid. TEM analysis showed that each nanoparticle comprised of 1 to 2 nano-crystallites. Photocatalytic activity results revealed that ZnO-NPs prepared through green synthesis route were found to be efficient in the degradation of toxic reactive red dye with degradation efficiency of 96.4% having high photodegradation rate-constant of 1.6 × 10 –2  min −1 . As an antimicrobial agent, the ZnO NPs are effective against both gram-positive ( Bacillus subtilis ) and negative bacteria ( Escherichia coli ), with the zones of clearance as 16.4 and 14.3 mm, respectively. Therefore, present research signifies an effective approach to utilize as-prepared ZnO NPs as efficient photocatalysts as well as antimicrobial agent.