Novel self-assembled valine-derived carbon-supported Ag@ZnO optical materials for enhanced photodegradation and anti-bacterial activity

Abstract

Herein, the synthesis of self-assembled amino acid valine-derived carbon-supported silver–zinc oxide (C–Ag@ZnO), Ag@ZnO and ZnO nanoparticles through a sol–gel method is reported. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-DRS) were used to investigate the characteristics of C–Ag@ZnO nanocomposites. The rapid charge carrier recombination and dependence on ultraviolet (UV) radiation limit the effectiveness of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles for environmental cleaning. In order to overcome these difficulties, carbon doping has been suggested as a way to improve charge separation and visible light absorption, and metal nanoparticle doping, such as silver nanoparticle doping, can enhance photocatalytic activity and antibacterial activity. In this work, the photodegradation of brilliant blue (BB) was used to measure the C–Ag@ZnO nanocomposite photocatalytic activity. Improved photocatalytic activity was obtained for C–Ag@ZnO nanoparticles compared to other pristine nanocomposite Ag@ZnO and pristine ZnO. Further it has been demonstrated that an optimum amount of self-assembled carbon along with silver doping is necessary to achieve a significant antibacterial and photocatalytic activity. The role of self-assembly is reported herein for the first time.