Author/Authors :
saoud, khaled virginia commonwealth university - liberal arts and science program, Doha, Qatar , al soubaihi, rola virginia commonwealth university - liberal arts and science program, Doha, Qatar , saeed, shaukat pakistan institute of engineering and applied sciences (pieas) - department of metallurgy and materials engineering, Islamabad, Pakistan , bensalah, nasr qatar university - department of chemistry, Doha, Qatar , al-fandi, mohamed jordan university of science and technology - nanotechnology institute, Irbid, Jordan , singh, tejvir hamad bin khalifa university, Doha, Qatar
Abstract :
Recently, we reported the synthesis of highly crystalline Ag (Silver) spheres on ZnOnanorods using Microwave Assisted Deposition-Precipitation (MADP) method with enhanced photocatalytic activity under visible light. In this paper, we report a comparative and experimental evidence for the potential applications of Ag/ZnO nanocomposites in waste water treatment. This paper presents the kinetics of Ag/ZnO toward Methylene Blue (MB) degradation under UV and Visible light irradiation, and the antibacterial properties toward Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria under light and in the dark. Results indicate that the presence of silver nanoparticles on the surface of ZnO leads to a significant and simultaneous enhancement of the optical and photocatalytic degradation efficiency of Ag/ZnO photocatalyst under UV and visible light irradiation, and was found to cause the inactivation of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria under visible light and dark. These results suggest that the presence of Ag nanoparticles play a significant role in the photocatalytic activity and in the enhancement of the antibacterial activity towards inactivation of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria.
Keywords :
Photocatalysis , UV and Visible Light Photocatalyst , Degradation , Methylene Blue (MB) , Ag , ZnO
