Sustainable and facile fabrication of chitosan-coated silver-doped zinc oxide nanocomposites exploiting Bergera koenigii foliage for enhanced photocatalysis and antibacterial activity.

Industrial and academic chemical pollutants such as Eriochrome Black-T (EBT) and murexide dyes are widely used in academic institution as well as industries, when eluted into rivers, delineate the ill effect on human and aquatic life. Herein, green and ecofriendly synthesis of silver doped-Zinc oxide nanoparticles (Ag/ZnO NPs) and chitosan coated Ag/ZnO nanoparticles (CS/Ag/ZnO NPs) using Bergera koenigii extract to solve environmental issues have been reported for the first time. Spherical and agglomerated particles with crystalline flakes like morphology of Ag/ZnO NPs and CS/Ag/ZnO NPs respectively have been ascertained by Scanning electron morphology (SEM) analyses and XRD. XRD analysis revealed the average crystallite size of 42.16 nm and 48.45 nm for Ag/ZnO NPs with 5 % and 10 % Ag concentration respectively, lesser than crystallite size of 47.394 nm and 52.38 nm for CS-5 % Ag/ZnO NC and CS-10 % Ag/ZnO NC respectively. All the synthesized NPs and NC demonstrated remarkable antibacterial potential against both gram +ve and gram -ve bacteria. Additionally, all the materials showed very high time-dependent photocatalytic degradation activity (>98 %) of EBT and murexide in 12 min. Remarkably, all active nano-catalysts exhibit high durability, and displayed recyclability for >8 cycles. In nutshell, chitosan coated nano-catalyst showed drastic improvement in photocatalytic and antibacterial activities.