Green synthesis of silver doped zinc oxide/magnesium oxide nanocomposite for waste water treatment and examination of their cytotoxicity properties.

This research attempted to prepare silver-doped zinc oxide/magnesium oxide nanocomposite (Ag-doped ZnO/MgO-NCP) using plant extract. The synthesized NCP was investigated by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Mapping, and UV-Visible analyses. The XRD data displayed cubic crystal structures for silver & magnesium oxide and a hexagonal framework for zinc oxide. Also, FESEM and PSA images of NCP pointed out, that the average size of the spherical morphology is about 10-16 nm, while the analysis of EDX confirmed the attendance of Zn, Mg, Ag, and O elements. Under UVA light, we tested the photocatalytic activity of NCP to the degradation of Methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RhB) dyes in various temperatures (400, 500, and 600 °C). The results of the photocatalytic test displayed that the degradation percentage of MB dye in pH = 9, nanocomposite amount ∼30 mg, and dye concentration ∼1 × 10  M was about 98 %. We also evaluated the cytotoxicity of nanocomposite on cancer CT-26 cell line through the MTT method and obtained an IC value of 250 μg/mL.