Synthesis and characterization of monodispersed uniform-size aromatic thiolate-protected cobalt nanoclusters for antibacterial and dye degradation studies

Abstract

In this work, we successfully synthesized monodispersed uniform-sized nanoclusters of less than 7 nm using a dual solvent interaction effect based on nanoclusters formation and growth of thiol-protected (TP) stabilized cobalt nanoclusters (CoNCs) mechanism. The spherical morphology synthesized nanoclusters was confirmed by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) microscopy. The X-Ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and Selected area electron diffraction (SAED) pattern of the nanoclusters were confirmed the physical properties and crystallographic nature. The obtained small particles play a significant role in antibacterial studies using one gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and one gram-negative (Escherichia coli) bacteria, and sensing of methyl orange in the detection range is 9.2615 × 10−6 to 2.1760 × 10−4 M for methyl orange (MO) rapid degradation.