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Due to the accelerating growth of civilian and industrial regime, chemical and bioremediation of water body become a major concern for society. Here, we report a facile and scalable process to get Zinc-aluminium layered double hydroxide (LDH) with carbonate interlayer anion and present it as promising multifunctional material for potential applications in adsorption, antibacterial, and cytotoxicity performances. In this study, the sample was prepared by co-precipitation method and the well crystalline LDH was characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The study shows excellent adsorption capacity of Zn 2 Al-CO 3 LDH as high as 81.4 mg/g against the methyl orange (MO) dye taken as a model organic pollutant. Adsorption kinetics and adsorption isotherms have also been investigated in detail. Moreover, the prepared Zn 2 Al-CO 3 LDH sample shows commendable antimicrobial efficacy against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. In addition to that, under cytotoxicity study, the sample exhibits a creditable inhibitory effect towards the cancerous cell HEPG2 cell. As a whole the results show the significant implication of the Zn 2 Al-CO 3 LDHas a multifunctional material towards environmental concern and also as an antimicrobial material.

Nanoparticles of Y2NiMnO6 having diameters around 20 nm were synthesized by a sol-gel method. X-ray data were analysed by Rietveld method. This showed the crystals to have monoclinic structure. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies showed a ratio of Mn3+/Mn4+ equal to 0.64 to be present in the nanocrystals. A small polaron hopping conduction model was found to satisfactorily explain the electrical resistivity behaviour of the samples. The latter exhibited ferromagnetic (FM) properties with a Curie temperature around 92 K. This behaviour was ascribed to a ferromagnetic superexchange interaction between Mn4+ and Ni2+ ions. Spin glass behaviour was ruled out on the basis of ac magnetic susceptibility data. The nanocrystals exhibited a peak in the dielectric constant at a temperature 535 K indicating a ferroelectric transition. This is consistent with the recent theoretical prediction made on the basis of density functional calculations.

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Nickel oxide nanoparticles of diameter ∼21 nm were prepared by a sol–gel method using the triblock copolymer poly(ethylene glycol)- b -(propylene glycol)- b -(ethylene glycol). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis showed the presence of Ni 2+ and Ni 3+ ions in the material. The electrical conductivity of this material was due to small polaron hopping between Ni 2+ and Ni 3+ sites. The magnetization shown by these nanoparticles was much higher than that reported in the literature. This is ascribed to the presence of Ni 3+ ions with uncompensated spin moments. Spin-glass behavior was exhibited by the material at 10.7 K. The electrochemical characterization of electrodes comprising of these NiO nanoparticles using cyclic voltammetric measurements showed a specific capacitance value of 810 F/g, the highest reported for this material. These materials will thus form one of the useful multifunctional systems.