Electrochemical Synthesis of γ-Cu5Zn8 Bimetallic Nano Alloy for Efficient Degradation of Methyl Orange Dye and Antimicrobial Efficacy

The present work reports the investigation of monodispersed nano brass prepared by the facile electrochemical technique. The influence of reaction parameters on the size and surface morphology of the bimetallic nano alloy were investigated through high resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM) and powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) technique. Powder XRD revealed the crystalline morphology of gamma-Cu5Zn8 nano brass with an average crystallite size of 16 nm. Furthermore, TEM micrographs highlighted the crystalline texture through its lattice fringes and the average crystal size obtained is 5 nm. The chemical stoichiometry with 60:40 mol% of Zn and Cu was revealed by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDAX) and the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) provided evidence for the presence of Cu and Zn through the 2p line binding energy signals. Optical responses obtained from diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) showed that the anisotropic crystals with Zn-rich composition in the low wavelength region (355 nm). The energy band gap value of 2.73 eV obtained from the optical spectrum shown it can be a good photocatalyst. The rate of photocatalytic reaction and mechanism of degradation were discussed in detail using methyl orange dye as model pollutant. Furthermore, the antimicrobial efficacy of the gamma-CuZn nano alloy was examined using gram positive and gram negative bacterial strains.

Automated summary

This study investigates the preparation of monodispersed nano brass using a facile electrochemical technique, exploring its size and surface morphology through various analytical methods. The results demonstrate its potential applications in photocatalysis and antimicrobial efficacy, showing promising properties for environmental and biomedical fields.