Highly efficient catalytic/sonocatalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol and antibacterial activity through a bifunctional Ag/ZnO nanohybrid material prepared via a sodium alginate method

Hicham Abou Oualid; Othmane Amadine; Younes Essamlali; Issam Meftah Kadmiri; Hicham El Arroussi; Mohamed Zahouily

doi:10.1039/c9na00075e

Highly efficient catalytic/sonocatalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol and antibacterial activity through a bifunctional Ag/ZnO nanohybrid material prepared via a sodium alginate method

Nanoscale Adv. 2019 Jul 2;1(8):3151-3163. doi: 10.1039/c9na00075e. eCollection 2019 Aug 6.

Authors

Hicham Abou Oualid^{1

2}, Othmane Amadine¹, Younes Essamlali¹, Issam Meftah Kadmiri³, Hicham El Arroussi³, Mohamed Zahouily^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ VARENA Center, MAScIR Foundation Rabat Design, Rue Mohamed El Jazouli, Madinat El Irfane 10100-Rabat Morocco m.zahouily@mascir.com +212661416359.
² Laboratoire de Matériaux, Catalyse et Valorisation des Ressources Naturelles, URAC 24, FST, Université Hassan II-Casablanca BP, 146 20650 Morocco.
³ Green Biotechnology Center, Moroccan Foundation for Advanced Science, Innovation and Research, Rabat Design Center Rabat Morocco.

Abstract

In this work, a bifunctional nanohybrid silver/zinc oxide material (Ag/ZnO) has been synthesized by a rapid route using sodium alginate simultaneously as a sacrificial template and silver reducing agent. The obtained samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), solid diffuse reflectance and liquid state UV-visible spectroscopy (DRS, UV-visible), and nitrogen adsorption-desorption analysis (BET-BJH). The XRD patterns showed that the Ag/ZnO sample is composed of a hexagonal zinc oxide structure with cubic metallic silver (Ag°). SEM micrographs exhibited a porous structure which was confirmed by BET-BJH methods to be mesoporous. The Ag/ZnO material was used as a nanocatalyst in the conversion of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) to 4-aminophenol (4-AP) as well as an antibacterial agent against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. It was found that an efficient 4-NP reduction to 4-AP in the presence of NaBH₄ shows a rate constant of 0.418 min^-1 under ultrasonic energy and 0.316 min^-1 without ultrasonic energy. Both the catalysis reaction and antibacterial activity analysis were conducted in water solution and showed a synergetic effect of metallic silver loading.