Fabrication, characterization, photocatalytic and biological performances of Mn/ZnO–SiO2 and ZnO–SiO2/PVA based ternary nanocomposites

Abstract

Abstract Different strategies can be employed to enhance and adjust the overall characteristics and potential applications of the nanomaterials. Herein, ZnO–SiO2, Mn/ZnO–SiO2 and ZnO–SiO2/PVA based nanocomposites were synthesized by sol-gel and in-situ polymerization methods by taking the Zn(CH3COO)·2H2O as ZnO, TEOS as the SiO2 and Mn(SO4)2·7H2O as the Mn precursors. The present study investigates various aspects of ZnO–SiO2, Mn/ZnO–SiO2, and ZnO–SiO2/PVA nanomaterials, including electronic transition, surface morphology, elemental composition, chemical structure elucidation, thermal stability, and phase changes. To accomplish this, several techniques were employed. All the results confirmed the formation of the synthesized composite materials. Moreover, the catalytic and photocatalytic activities of the synthesized composites were studied through the degradation of Methylene blue (MB) dye, etc. The results confirmed that the synthesized nanocomposites exhibited good catalytic and photocatalytic activities towards removal of methylene blue (MB) dye removal. Further, the catalytic/photocatalytic activity of ZnO–SiO2, Mn/ZnO–SiO2 and ZnO–SiO2/PVA nanocomposites were also compared towards the removal of methylene blue (MB) dye and it was verified that the Mn/ZnO–SiO2 nanocomposite show high photocatalytic activity among the three nanocomposites i.e., ZnO–SiO2, Mn/ZnO–SiO2 and ZnO–SiO2/PVA with removal efficiencies of 81 %, 77 % and 77 %, after 6 h, 5 h and 9 h respectively, under UV light illumination. Moreover, the photodegradation mechanism was also studied and finally, the biological activities like antioxidant and antileishmanial were also studied and compared.