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Therapeutic Physical Properties, Photocatalytic, and Anti-bacterial Activities of Hydrothermally Fabricated Cu-doped ZnO NPs

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Abstract

A hydrothermal process is applied to fabricate copper-doped dilute magnetic semiconductor nanorods Zn1 − xCuxO (x = 3%). The influence of reaction pH value and synthesis temperature was evaluated on their physical properties’ anti-bacterial and photocatalytic activities. XRD denouements imply that the material is crystalline and exhibits hexagonal wurtzite geometry whose crystallinity reduces from 29.86 to 26.1 nm and enhances from 29.86 to 34.83 nm with increasing pH value and synthesis temperature, respectively. The material morphology was switched from nanorods to nanowires, and a blue shift from 3.14 to 3.28 eV was noticed in the optical bandgap along with shifting in various vibrations. The dielectric and electrical measurements showed similar behavior, whereas the relative permeability and saturation magnetization were knocked off by increasing pH value and temperature. The photocatalytic activity results showed the maximum degradation of MO dye (95%) under sunlight using the Cu-doped ZnO synthesized at pH 13 and 130 °C. All the samples were found active to inhibit the growth of bacterial strains.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by Higher Education Commission Start-up Research Grant Program No: 21-2079/SRGP/R&D/HEC/2018.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, 40100, Pakistan

    Muhammad Zahid Ishaque, Yasir Zaman, Yasir Yousaf & Muhammad Shahzad

  2. Institute of Chemistry, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, 40100, Pakistan

    Abu Bakar Siddique

  3. Institute of Chemical Sciences, University of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Peshawar, 25120, Pakistan

    Hira Zaman

  4. Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China

    Sarmad Ali

  5. Key Laboratory for Palygorskite Science and Applied Technology of Jiangsu Province, National& Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Deep Utilization Technology of Rock-Salt Resource, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Huaiyin Institute of Technology, Huaian, 223003, China

    Nisar Ali

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  1. Muhammad Zahid Ishaque
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  2. Yasir Zaman
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  3. Yasir Yousaf
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Correspondence to Yasir Zaman, Abu Bakar Siddique or Nisar Ali.

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Highlights

• Synthesis and fabrication of copper doped zinc oxide semiconductor nanostructures.

• Evaluation of electric and magnetic properties.

• Copper doped zinc oxide NPs were used to degrade methyl orange for photocatalytic applications under ambient conditions of sunlight irradiation.

• Effect of radical scavengers to support proposed dye degradation mechanism.

• NPs were found more active toward gram-negative strains of bacteria.

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Ishaque, M.Z., Zaman, Y., Yousaf, Y. et al. Therapeutic Physical Properties, Photocatalytic, and Anti-bacterial Activities of Hydrothermally Fabricated Cu-doped ZnO NPs. Water Air Soil Pollut 235, 43 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-023-06827-2

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