Photocatalytic and antibacterial activities of <i>Paeonia emodi</i> mediated silver oxide nanoparticles

摘要： Green synthesis of nanomaterials and its verity of applications have linked chemistry, biotechnology and environmental chemistry. Green process get more attention due to its easy handling and inertness to ecosystem. The selection of green synthesis and silver oxide nanoparticles (Ag2O NPs) are purely based on its nontoxic behavior and promising activates. Eco-friendly process was applied for the synthesis of silver oxide nanoparticles (Ag2O NPs) using Paeonia emodi (P. emodi) fresh leaves extract as reducing agent. The average crystallite size was found to be 38.29 nm, calculated from the FWHM of the diffraction bands of X-rays diffractometer (XRD). The morphological study was made by performing transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the particles size estimated from the micrographs of both techniques are 38.29 and 86.4 nm respectively. The energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) was used to study the purity and percent composition of the Ag2O NPs. The band gap energy (4.02 eV) and surface functional groups was studied by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) respectively. The 97.78% methylene blue (MB) was degraded in the presence of Ag2O NPs and UV-Visible light source in 180 min. The antibacterial activity of the Ag2O NPs were tested against Gram-positive (Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus)) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) bacteria. It was found that the Ag2O NPs have strong growth inhibiting activity against Gram-negative bacteria than Gram-positive bacteria.