Antibacterial and photocatalytic activity of ZnO, SnO2 and Zn2SnO4 nanoparticles prepared by Microwave assisted method

Abstract

ABSTRACT A simple microwave assisted method was employed to synthesiseZnO, SnO2 and Zn2SnO4 nanoparticles (NPs). XRD studies revealed the crystalline formation of ZnO with wurtzite, SnO2 with rutile and Zn2SnO4 with cubic respectively. FESEM showed that the ZnO, SnO2 and Zn2SnO4 NP’s morphology constituted of spindle, spherical and polygonal grains respectively. EDAX, FT-IR, Raman and PL studies have established the composition, the functional groups, phonon modes and the emission behaviour of NP’s respectively. The higher antibacterial activity of Zn2SnO4 NPs than the ZnO and SnO2 is attributed to the effect of composite ions that create oxygen defects to damage the microbe synthesis activity leading to the cell losing their ability of cell division, which may lead to the cell death of the bacteria. Further, Zn2SnO4 NPs exhibit appreciable photocatalytic activity and the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue was increased up to 90.9 % with respective time duration of 120 minutes.