Due to the rapid growth of drug-resistant bacterial infections, there is an urgent need to develop innovative antimicrobial strategies to conquer the bacterial antibiotic resistance problems.
In this work, we aim to study zinc
oxide (ZnO)-based functional
materials over cotton fabrics and their effects after gamma ray exposure
of 9 kGy. We found that the binding of the nanoparticles with cotton
fabrics can be enhanced after irradiation. This could be due to the
oxygen deficiency or defects created in the interface between ZnO
and cotton fabrics after irradiation. Near-edge X-ray absorption fine
structure and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to
detect the oxygen inadequacies generated in the interior and at the
surface of the ZnO nanoparticles after gamma ray exposure. XPS results
showed that the binding energy of Zn shifts by 2 eV at 1.5 kGy and
by 4 eV at 9 kGy. This huge shift of about 4 eV is completely different
from other works due to the reaction that takes place on the interface
between ZnO nanostructures and cotton fabrics after gamma ray irradiation.
Overall, this work suggests that after gamma ray irradiation, there
is an enhanced level of binding between the coated functional nanoparticles
and cotton fabrics, which can be advantageous for the textile industries.
We report a nontransition-metal chalcogenide Bi2Te3–Au
x
nanocomposite
(NC)
architecture by two-step solvothermal synthesis of Bi2Te3 combined with in situ reduction (Kirkendall effect) of HAuCl4 (with concentration of x mM) to obtain nano
Schottky junctions with Au nanoclusters on Bi2Te3 nanosheets. The interface of Bi2Te3–Au
is analyzed using various microscopic, spectroscopic, and electrical
characterizations. The increased Schottky junction density with increased
Au loading (x = 0.25–20 mM in solution) resulted
in an enhancement of peroxidase activity (POD) by 4.2–9.6 folds,
upto x = 5 mM, compared to pure Au nanoclusters.
The kinetics, studied by Michaelis–Menten plots, reveal similar
activity of the NCs to that of the gold standard horseradish peroxidase
(HRP). The binding affinities of tetramethylbenzidine for Bi2Te3–Au0.5 and Bi2Te3–Au5 are found to be 1.57 and 4.9 folds better
than that of HRP. The synergistic POD activity enhancement follows
the electron-transfer mechanism. A facile H2O2-mediated colorimetric glucose detection is demonstrated by the Bi2Te3–Au0.5 NCs with a limit of
detection 0.38 mM. These results show the possibility of converting
an inactive nontransition-metal chalcogenide to an active one with
distributed nano Schottky junctions with Au nanoclusters showing synergistic
POD. The nontransition-metal chalcogenide–noble metal interface
may be developed for antioxidant properties, bio-detection, and bio-catalysis.
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