ZnO-based mutable Ag2S/Ag2O multilayered architectures for organic dye degradation and inhibition of E. coli and B. subtilis

Abstract

ZnO-based nanomaterials have been increasingly recognized for their use in medical and environmental fields. The current study includes a simple wet-chemical development of ZnO-based multilayered architectures having Ag2O and Ag2S. In specific, ZnO/Ag2O/Ag2S and ZnO/Ag2S/Ag2O were developed and their response against Rhodamine B (RhB) dye as well as gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, namely Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli was measured. Both architectures produced a noticeable increase in absorbance and photoluminescence properties of pristine ZnO, ensuing 100 % increase in the dye degradation efficiency of ZnO under light. While, both multilayered architectures exhibited two times higher antimicrobial performance than ZnO without exposure of light, showing their mutability and effectuality regardless of the order of presence of Ag2O and Ag2S on ZnO. Antibacterial assay was performed as per the agar-well diffusion test standards to endorse that ZnO/Ag2O/Ag2S as well as ZnO/Ag2S/Ag2O both proved better than ZnO alone.