Single-pot solid-state synthesis of ZnO/chitosan composite for photocatalytic and antitumour applications

In recent years, hybrids prepared by coupling metal oxides with polymers have attracted great interest from researchers across multiple fields. Chitosan, a natural eco-friendly biopolymer, derived from the shells of crustaceans was chosen in the current work to synthesize ZnO/chitosan composite. A simple and effective solid-state method was employed for the synthesis of the composite. The successful formation of the composite was revealed from TGA, FT-IR, XRD and EDAX analyses. XPS and FT-IR analyses ascertained that ZnO and chitosan were linked through hydrogen bonding and coordinate bonding-type interactions. Since the composite displayed absorption edge in the visible light region, photocatalytic activity of the composite was evaluated by the degradation of crystal violet dye under visible light irradiation. The successful anticancer activity of the synthesized ZnO/chitosan composite was confirmed through its MTT assay against MCF-7 cells. ZnO/chitosan composite exhibited excellent antitumour activity towards the breast cancer cells compared to control ZnO. This work may open up a new, environmentally benign route to synthesize metal oxide-based composites that can be employed for biological and biomedical applications.