Synthesis and Investigation of Doped ZnO Nanostructures for Enhanced Photocatalytic and Antibacterial Activities

Abstract

In the last few decades, ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) because of their unique mechanical, optical, and electronic properties have triggered extensive research activities. ZnO NPs are gaining attention from researchers because of their low-temperature synthesis, variable morphologies, excellent optical properties, high crystallinity, desired electrical characteristics, and high chemical sensitivity. ZnO NPs find a wide range of applications in photocatalysis, water-splitting, biochemical sensing, gas sensing, electronics, biomedical uses etc. Despite these unique properties, the sensing, photocatalytic and antibacterial properties of ZnO NPs were insufficient. Recent studies have been focused on the amalgamation of catalytic species to overcome these issues. Doping and composite formation with ZnO NPs has been showing a remarkable impact on its characteristics properties. The nanoparticles (NPs) of ZnO, Cu-doped ZnO, and Ag-doped ZnO samples were prepared using a simple, fast, effective and economic chemical co-precipitation technique specifically aimed at enhancing photocatalytic and antibacterial activity. The structural, morphological, phase constitutional, functional, elemental, and optical properties have been studied using Powder X-ray Diffraction (PXRD), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), UV-visible (UV-vis), Ultra Violet Diffused Reflectance Spectroscopy (UV-DRS), Fourier-transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy, Photoluminescence (PL) Spectroscopy, Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Vibrating Sample Magnetometry (VSM), Raman Spectroscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) and Photoelectrochemical (PEC) analysis were done to study the electrical behaviour and charge carrier concentrations. newline