Photocatalysis, enhanced anti-bacterial performance and discerning thiourea sensing of Ag2O•SnO2•TiO2 hetero-structure

A novel multifunctional material with high dye degradation efficiency, photoluminescence (PL) and electrosensing ability was synthesized with a simple co-precipitation method followed by thermal calcination. The dye degradation efficiency was 98% at pH 9 within only 60 min. The material also showed excellent anti-bacterial activity against both Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria in the presence and absence of light. For the electro-sensor application of Ag2O center dot SnO2 center dot TiO2, glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was modified by the Ag2O center dot SnO2 center dot TiO2 nanomaterials at room conditions. The resulting Ag2O center dot SnO2 center dot TiO2/Nafion/GCE sensor assembly was employed to determine Thiourea (TU) by a simple and reliable electrochemical approach at low-potential. Hazardous TU was selected as the target analyte by the selectivity study. In the investigative study, for the TU concentrations of 0.10 nM to 0.10 M, the calibration plot was found linear (r(2) = 0.9997). Calculated sensitivity and limit of detection values were obtained as 4.2913 mu A mu M-1 cm(-2) and 2.3 +/- 0.1 pM (S/N = 3) respectively.