Nanosized tin oxide was fabricated with a simple and cost-effective precipitation technique and was analyzed by performing x-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, high-resolution transmission electron (HR-TEM) microscopy, energy-dispersive x-ray (EDX) and UV–Vis spectroscopy. The XRD results revealed that tin oxide particles possessed typical orthorhombic structure and exhibited improved crystallinity with annealing. Calcination at 250 °C produced predominantly orthorhombic SnO which transformed to SnO2 at higher temperatures of 500 and 750 °C. HRTEM and FESEM images showed existence of agglomeration within the particles of tin oxide. The absorption was found to increase up to a certain annealing temperature followed by a decrease, which was recorded via UV–Vis spectroscopy. The effect of annealing temperature on dye decomposition behavior of synthesized photocatalysts was studied. It was noted that annealing temperature affects the size of synthesized particles, band gap width and photoactivity of tin oxide. The sample prepared at 500 °C followed first-order kinetics and exhibited maximum photocatalytic reactivity toward methylene blue. The experimental results obtained from the present study indicate that SnO2 is a promising and beneficial catalyst to remove contaminants from wastewater and environment. The antimicrobial evaluation of SnO annealed at 500 °C against selected targets such as E. coli and S. aureus depicted significant inhibition zones in comparison with 250 and 750 °C samples. Furthermore, molecular docking predictions of SnO2 nanoparticles (NPs) were performed against active pocket of β-lactamase and DNA gyrase enzyme belonging to cell wall and nucleic acid biosynthetic pathway, respectively. The fabricated NPs showed good binding score against β-lactamase of both E. coli (− 5.71 kcal/mol) and S. aureus (− 11.83 kcal/mol) alongside DNA gyrase (− 9.57 kcal/mol; E. coli and − 8.61 kcal/mol; S. aureus). These in silico predictions suggested SnO2 NPs as potential inhibitors for selected protein targets and will facilitate to have a clear understanding of their mechanism of action that may contribute toward new antibiotics discovery.
Quantum dot (QD) composite nanoparticles of titania germanium (TiO2–Ge) were fabricated by pulsed laser ablation of composite targets of TiO2–Ge immersed in deionized water. The single phase crystallanity, lattice parameters, and the evaluation of crystallite size of nanoparticles was investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The morphology of the samples was analyzed through scanning electron microscopic studies. The average particle size calculated through XRD and measured through scanning electron microscope is in the range from 18 to 29 nm and are in agreement with each other. Compositional study was carried out through electron dispersive X-ray analysis showing that the ablation rate of Ge is smaller than TiO2. Optical properties were measured by UV–visible transmission spectra and Raman spectroscopy. The band gap of composite particles varies from the UV to the visible range by varying concentration of Ge QDs. This work shows that pulsed laser ablation in liquid media is an easy approach to synthesize ultrafine, contamination-free nanosized material, which is difficult to produce by other conventional methods.
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