Construction of SnO2/CuO/rGO nanocomposites for photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants and antibacterial applications

Water contamination by reactive dyes is a serious concern for human health and the environment. In this study, we prepared high efficient SnO2/CuO/rGO nanocomposites for reactive dye degradation. For structural analysis of SnO2/CuO/rGO nanocomposites, XRD, UV-Vis DRS, SEM, TEM-EDAX, and XPS analysis were used to char-acterize the physicochemical properties of the material. The characterization results confirmed great crystal-linity, purity, and optical characteristics features. For both Rhodamine B (RhB) and Reactive Red 120 (RR120) degradation processes, SnO2/CuO/rGO nanocomposites were tested for their photocatalytic degradation per-formance. The SnO2/CuO/rGO nanocomposites have expressed the degradation rate exposed to 99.6% of both RhB and RR120 dyes. The main reason behind the photocatalytic degradation was due to the formation of OH radical's generation by the composite materials. Moreover, the antibacterial properties of synthesized SnO2/ CuO/rGO nanocomposites were studied against E. coli, S. aureus, B. subtilis and P. aeroginosa and exhibited good antibacterial activity against the tested bacterial strains. Thus, the synthesized SnO2/CuO/rGO nanocomposites are a promising photocatalyst and antibacterial agent. Furthermore, mechanisms behind the antibacterial effects will be ruled out in near future.

Automated summary

In this study, efficient SnO2/CuO/rGO nanocomposites were synthesized for the degradation of reactive dyes. The nanocomposites exhibited high degradation efficiency for Rhodamine B and Reactive Red 120 dyes due to the generation of OH radicals. Additionally, the nanocomposites showed good antibacterial activity against several bacterial strains. Therefore, SnO2/CuO/rGO nanocomposites have great potential as photocatalysts and antibacterial agents.