Carbon spheres/polyvinylpyrrolidone doped MnO2 nanorods served as dye degrader and antibacterial activity with evidential molecular docking

Abstract

The present study synthesized carbon sphere (CS) and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) doped MnO2 nanorods via co-precipitation technique. Using a systematic approach, this research investigates the deliberate doping of carbon spheres at 2 and 4 wt.% concentrations into a predetermined quantity of PVP-doped MnO2 nanorods (NRs). The motive of this work was to reduce the recombination rate and inhibit the dimension of NRs that caused to increase in the catalytic reduction of methylene blue and microbicidal action of MnO2 NRs confirmed by molecular docking analysis. Several characterization techniques were utilized to check the effect of doping agents (CS and PVP) on the structural, morphological and optical characteristics of MnO2. The XRD pattern evidenced that MnO2 had an orthorhombic framework, and incorporating PVP and CS reduced the crystallinity of NRs. The electronic spectra revealed the blue shift, assigned to increase band gap energy by the addition PVP and CS. TEM analysis confirmed the formation of a network of MnO2 nanorods and decreased size with the integration of dopants. CS and PVP-doped MnO2 NRs significantly improved their microbicidal effectiveness towards Escherichia coli (E. coli) measured in an inhibitory zone mm and catalytic performance. The enigma behind these bactericidal effects was recently unraveled by in silico assertions regarding these doped NRs for targeted enzymes (i.e., DNA gyrase and β-lactamase).