Synthesis and characterization of nanocomposite for Azo dye degradation and anti-bacterial activity

Abstract

Nanocomposite of Zinc oxide and chitosan was synthesized as an efficient adsorbent and photocatalyst for the degradation of azo dyes and with an antibacterial activity as well. The synthesized product was characterized by DLS and the functional group study was done by FTIR spectroscopy. A mixture of three Azo dyes i.e. Acid Red 88, Acid Red 183 and Acid Blue 45 was taken to estimate the photocatalytic efficiency and adsorption capacity of the nanocomposite. The samples were exposed to the sunlight during the photocatalytic degradation of Azo dyes. The Chitosan/ZnO nanocomposite showed an adsorption decolorization efficiency of 92.92, 93.61 and 95.80% for the Nano composite concentrations of 2, 3, and 4mg/ml respectively for the mixture of Azo dyes after 360 min. For the antibacterial assay, gram-positive species (Bacillus subtilis) and gram-negative (Escherichia coli) bacterial strains were taken for which the zone of inhibition was observed to be (25 ± 0.50 mm) and (18 ± 0.50 mm) for the concentrations of 300µg/ml of NC and NP respectively in Bacillus subtilis.