Insight into novel triple doping (Mg, Cu, N and Mg, Cu, B) on the structural, optical, photocatalytic, and antibacterial properties of ZnO

Abstract

Due to the growing worries about environmental issues, dye degradation is substantial. Besides that, it is essential to prevent illness development by creating cutting-edge antibacterial agents that can inhibit bacterial activities. Herein, we report a novel photocatalyst exhibiting visible light responsivity for the degradation of methyl violet dye and possessing antibacterial properties to mitigating the emergence of drug resistance. It is triple-doped ZnO (Mg, Cu, N-doped ZnO, and Mg, Cu, B-doped ZnO), successfully synthesized by the solid-state method. The structure crystal is hexagonal wurtzite, and the crystal size is 34.68, 30.22, and 29.47 nm for undoped ZnO, (Mg, Cu, N)-doped ZnO, and (Mg, Cu, B)-doped ZnO, respectively, according to the study of X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, and SEM results. The (Mg, Cu, N)- and (Mg, Cu, B)-doped ZnO have smaller particle sizes than undoped ZnO. FTIR spectra show Zn-O, Cu-O, Mg-O,and B-O stretching for synthesized samples. The formation of (Mg, Cu, N)-doped ZnO and (Mg, Cu, B)-doped ZnO also were confirmed by EDAX. PL shows the formation of peaks in UV emission (∼350 nm) and visible emission (513–519 nm and ∼646 nm) that indicate the inhibition of electron-hole recombination and oxygen vacancies in the ZnO lattice. The effective photocatalytic activity of undoped ZnO, (Mg, Cu, N)-doped ZnO, and (Mg, Cu, B)-doped ZnO achieves 80.89 %, 93.41 %, and 92.18 % decolorization of water pollutant methyl violet. The antibacterial activities of the three samples are 6.45, 6.00, and 11.90 mm, respectively.