Synergetic effect of Sn doped ZnO nanoparticles synthesized via ultrasonication technique and its photocatalytic and antibacterial activity

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Highlights

  • Sn doped ZnO nanoparticle was prepared by ultrasonication aided co-precipitation method.

  • Photocatalytic efficiency of the Sn doped ZnO nanoparticle was tested.

  • The 5% Sn substituted ZnO nanoparticles showed higher photocatalytic activity.

  • Antibacterial activity of Sn substituted ZnO nanoparticle was studied.

Abstract

The current work reports the photocatalytic and antibacterial performance of tin (Sn) doped zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles synthesized via ultrasonic aided co-precipitation technique. The increase of Sn concentration decreased the lattice parameter and increased the crystallite size without changing the ZnO structure. The hexagonal shaped particles and sheets obtained for 3% and 5% Sn substituted ZnO, respectively. The increase of dopant concentration reduced the reflectance and optical band gap energy of Sn doped ZnO. The vibrational band present at 1443 cm−1 confirmed the successful bond formation of Sn–O–Zn. The 5% Sn doped ZnO nanoparticles exhibited greater dye elimination rate of methylene blue compared to 3% Sn. The antibacterial activity of Sn doped ZnO showed the higher zone of inhibition about 14 mm against different pathogens. The 5% Sn doped ZnO photocatalyst improve the transfer rate of photo excite carrier and decrease the rate of recombination which greatly influence on the photocatalytic and antibacterial performance.

Introduction

Release of wastewater from various industries includes textile, leather, pharmaceuticals and personal care products which cause hazardous pollution to the environment (Kumar et al., 2014; Zhu et al., 2020). Wastewater from these industries directly mix into the water bodies without any prior process can cause various disorders. Because it contains various organic dyes and bacteria which contaminate the water bodies and creates severe issues to the living organisms. Combination of organic dyes and bacteria could cause contamination contamination in the water bodies which results in the death of living organism in the water environment especially aquatic flora, fauna and fish (Khin et al., 2012; Kuhn et al., 2019; Kumar et al., 2016; Lim et al., 2013; Sharma et al., 2010). The use of contaminated water shows various health effects such as respiratory, nervous and skin issues to the animals and human beings. So, it is an urgency for environmental remediation to eradicate the dyes and bacteria with modern techniques. Photocatalyst is an efficient and cost-effective method to degrade the dyes completely in ambient reaction conditions without any secondary pollution. Metal oxide semiconductor has been extensively used in photocatalyst water splitting, air purification, gas sensors and other applications. Among various metal oxide semiconductors, zinc oxide has been extensively used as photocatalyst and antibiotic due to wide band gap, stability, conductivity, nontoxic and abundancy. Moreover, it is easy to tune the band gap energy. Zinc oxide is used as antibiotic, preservative and also it is used in drug delivery, packaging, purification of water and skin coating from the olden days because it serves as a charge trapping sites to kill the bacteria and degrade the toxic dyes (Hirota et al., 2010; Martha et al., 2014; Ohira et al., 2008; Wei et al., 2019). Several efforts have been widely practiced to increase the photocatalytic and antibacterial ability of ZnO in the visible light (Kannadasan et al., 2014; Khanchandani et al., 2012; Pascariu and Homocianu, 2019). To increase the photocatalytic and the antibacterial activity of the ZnO material, Sn is replaced in the Zn lattice through the electronegativity and ionic radii. Vasanthi et al. (2013) reported that doping Sn increases the antibacterial activity against E. coli. Siva et al. (2020) also reported that doping of Sn supresses the carrier recombination. In the present work, Sn (3% and 5%) doped ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized by ultrasonic aided co-precipitation technique and observed the photocatalytic and antibacterial efficacy. Ultrasonication method is advantageous which avoid the burst nucleation and controlled growth which directly related to their size and prevent the agglomeration of nanoparticles (Eskandarloo et al., 2016). The ultrasonication process creates the acoustic cavitation and collapse the bubbles through local heating and high pressure in short time this leads to the enhancement in the photocatalytic and antibacterial activity (Alfonso-Muniozguren et al., 2020, Gedanken, 2004). This study particularly gives a new insight into the ultrasonic effect on the photocatalytic and antibacterial property of Sn doped ZnO nanoparticles. The ultrasonication process initiates the physical changes by rapid chemical reaction and improve the photocatalytic dye degradation efficacy of aqueous dye pollutants (Shirsath et al., 2013). Zinatloo-Ajabshir et al. (2018) reported that the photocatalytic efficacies ultrasound assisted preparation processes exhibit higher compared to that of conventional methods towards methylene blue decomposition.

Section snippets

Preparation of Sn doped ZnO nanoparticles

Zinc acetate, sodium hydroxide and stannous chloride were obtained from Merck, India and used for the synthesis without any further purification. 1 M of Sn doped ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized by ultrasonic aided co-precipitation technique (Gnanamozhi et al., 2020, Jamshidi et al., 2016). 0.97 M of zinc acetate, 0.03 M of stannous chloride and sodium hydroxide were dissolved in 50 ml of distilled water in a separated beaker and kept under magnetic stirring at 850 rpm. Then, the tin

Impact of Sn concentration on the structural property of ZnO nanoparticles

The powder XRD pattern of 3% and 5% Sn doped ZnO nanopowder is shown in the Fig. 1a. The inset of Fig. 1 (a) shows the XRD pattern of bare ZnO nanoparticles. The presence 100, 002, 101, 102, 110, 103, 200, 112 and 201 planes correspond to the wurtzite hexagonal ZnO with space group of sP63mc. The diffraction pattern of Sn doped ZnO nanoparticles matches well with the standard JCPDS pattern of wurtzite hexagonal ZnO (Ghayempour and Montazer, 2017). Both 3% and 5% Sn doped ZnO nanoparticles

Conclusion

The prepared Sn doped ZnO nanoparticles retained the wurtzite hexagonal structure. The FT-IR spectra revealed the Zn–O and Zn–Sn stretching bands at 422 and 1443 cm−1, respectively. The optical band gap energy shrinkage from 3.17 to 3.0 eV with the increase of Sn concentration which indicated the well-crystallization of nano sized grains. From FE-SEM studies, Sn doped ZnO nanoparticles revealed hexagonal sheet like morphology. The research on photocatalytic and antibacterial efficiency of Sn

Credit author statement

Study conception and design: Steplinpaulselvin Selvinsimpson, Mani Govindasamy, P.Gnanamozhi, Mohamed A. Habila Analysis and interpretation of data: Steplinpaulselvin Selvinsimpson, Najla AlMasoud, P.Gnanamozhi Drafting of manuscript: Steplinpaulselvin Selvinsimpson, Yong Chen, Mani Govindasamy. Critical revision: Yong Chen, V.Pandiyan, Mohamed A. Habila.

Declaration of competing interest

There are no conflicts of interest to declare.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21876056, 21677054 and 21377043) The Project was funded by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M630865).

The authors are grateful to the Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University for funding through Vice Deanship of Scientific Research Chairs and funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University through the fast-track Research funding Program. V. Pandiyan

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