Chitosan-based synthesis of silver-doped tungsten oxide nanoparticles and assessment of its cytotoxicity and photocatalytic performance

Abstract

In this project, pure tungsten oxide nanoparticles (WO3-NPs) and silver-doped tungsten oxide nanoparticles (Ag-doped WO3-NPs, 3, 5, and 7 % of Ag) were synthesized via the use of chitosan as the reducing and stabilizing agent in a sol–gel method. The optical and structural properties, size, and morphology of pure WO3-NPs and Ag-doped WO3-NPs were examined by UV–Vis, FT-IR, DRS, XRD, EDX, FESEM, ICP, and Raman studies. Accordingly, the XRD and FT-IR data approved the synthesis of pure and crystalline WO3-NPs and Ag-doped WO3-NPs. The evaluated cytotoxicity of nanomaterials on cancer B16F0 cell line through the MTT method exhibited their inhibitory impact on cancer cells with the IC50 of 287 and 209.6 µg/mL for WO3-NPs and Ag-doped WO3-NPs (7 %), respectively. The conducted photocatalytic tests under UV-C light irradiation indicated the effect of increasing the doping (Ag) concentration on intensifying the degradation percentage of methylene blue (MB) pigment after 260 min (83.7 % for WO3-NPs and 95.3 % for Ag-doped WO3-NPs (7 %)).