Photocatalytic and antibacterial activities of green synthesized Ag doped MgO nanocomposites towards environmental sustainability.

The utilization of MgO nanoparticles (NPs) for Photocatalytic and antimicrobial activities has gained lots of attention in recent years. Since silver is an expensive material, it's of interest to check that doping of very small concentration of silver will increase the pollutant degradation efficiency of composites. Here Aloe Vera plant extract was used for synthesis of MgO, Ag NPs and Ag/MgO-nanocomposites (NCs). Green synthesized NPs and NCs were confirmed by using different techniques like UV-Vis, BET, TGA, FTIR, PL, XRD (optical, functional, Thermal, Structural) EDX, TEM, SEM, XPS, EIS and EPR (morphological, elemental, photoelectrical and ROS) studies respectively. Then NPs and NCs were applied for the photocatalytic activity of methylene blue (MB), phenol and antimicrobial studies of E. coli bacteria. Ag/MgO-NCs showed 90.18% dye and 80.67% phenol degradation in 120 min which killed E. Coli pathogenic bacteria in 25 min under solar light irradiations. In disk diffusion methods, it inactivates 24 mm area of bacterial cell growth. Thus, among these green synthesized NPs and NCs, Ag/MgO-NCs exhibited enhanced photocatalytic and antimicrobial activities.

Facile Synthesis of SiO2/CMC/Ag Hybrids Derived from Waste Biomass (Sugarcane Bagasse) Having Special Medical Application.

This research is focused on the use of sol gel technique to synthesize amorphous SiO2 hybrids derived from lab made CMC (made from sugarcane bagasse) and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) comprising silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs). The dominant absorption peak in the order of 425 nm confirms the presence of Ag-NPs hybrid group owing to the surface Plasmon resonance (SPR). Ag-NPs hybrid characterization of was performed by Ultra violet-visible spectra (UV-Vis), Scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Particle size analyser (PSA), Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The antibacterial action of Ag-NPs in contrast to Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli) (ATCC 433) and Gram-positive bacteria (Bacillus subtilis) (ATCC 1688) was analyzed by using the method of agar disk diffusion technique. Ag-NPs hybrids extracted from lab-made CMC confirm higher adverse bacterial action through Gram-positive bacteria as well as Gram-negative bacteria related to synthetic CMC acquired from the market.