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The development of cost-effective and ecofriendly approaches toward water purification and antibacterial activity is a hot research topic in this era. Purposely, strontium-doped zinc selenide (Sr-doped ZnSe) nanoparticles, with different molar ratios of Sr2+ cations (0.01, 0.05, and 0.1), were prepared via the co-precipitation method, in which sodium borohydride (NaBH4) and 2-mercaptoethanol were employed as reducing and stabilizing agents, respectively. The ZnSe cubic structure expanded by Sr2+ cations was indicated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The absorption of the chemical compounds on the surface was observed via Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The optical orientation was measured by ultraviolet–visible diffused reflectance spectroscopy (UV-DRS) analysis. The surface area, morphology, and elemental purity were analyzed using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analyses. The oxidation state and valency of the synthesized nanoparticles were analyzed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Sr-doped ZnSe nanoparticles were investigated for photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO), and their antibacterial potential was investigated against different bacterial strains. The antibacterial activity examined against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli implied the excellent biological activity of the nanoparticles. Moreover, the Sr-doped ZnSe nanoparticles were evaluated by the successful degradation of methyl orange under visible light irradiation. Therefore, Sr-doped ZnSe nanoparticles have tremendous potential in biological and water remediation fields.

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Environmental nanotechnology has received much attention owing to its implications on environmental ecosystem, and thus is promising for the elimination of toxic elements from the aquatic surface. This work focuses on Cu-doped ZnSe nanoparticles using the co-precipitation method. The synthesized Cu-doped ZnSe nanoparticles were examined for structural, optical, and morphological properties with the help of XRD, FTIR, UV/vis diffuse reflection spectroscopy (DRS), FESEM, TEM, and XPS. The synthesized Cu-doped ZnSe nanoparticles revealed the presence of Cu2+ in the ZnSe lattice, which has been shown to take a predominant role for enhanced catalysis in the Cu-doped ZnSe nanoparticles. The synthesized Cu-doped ZnSe nanoparticles were investigated for their catalytic and antibacterial activities. The 0.1 M copper-doped ZnSe nanoparticles exhibited the highest rate of degradation against the methyl orange dye, which was found to be 87%. A pseudo-first-order kinetics was followed by Cu-doped ZnSe nanoparticles with a rate constant of 0.1334 min−1. The gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria were used for investigating the anti-bacterial activity of the Cu-doped ZnSe nanoparticles. The Cu-doped ZnSe nanoparticles exhibited enhanced photocatalytic and antibacterial activity.