Antibacterial, antifungal and photocatalytic evaluation of Gd₂O₃-Fe₂O₃-CoO heterostructured photocatalyst

In the present work, the tri-phase of Gd2O3-Fe2O3-CoO heterostructured ternary nanocomposite was synthesised via a facile co-precipitation method to investigate the antimicrobial and photocatalytic potential. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and BET (Brunauer-Emmitt-Teller) analysis were used to examine the functional group detection, phase purity, surface morphology elemental detection and surface area of synthesised nanocomposite. The antibacterial study against Staphylococus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, and Bacillus subtilis bacterial strains was evaluated. The results showed higher activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa with ZOI 26 mm. The antifungal test against Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus niger was evaluated. The results showed higher activity against Aspergillus flavus with less growth of fungi around the composite. Methylene blue (MB) dye and Ciprofloxacin (CIP) drug were used as target pollutants to evaluate the photocatalytic performance of catalyst under solar light irradiation. The ternary composite exhibited 93% and 96% degradation efficiency towards MB and CIP at pH = 11, and pH = 7, respectively in 120 min which is higher than pure Gd2O3, Fe2O3 and CoO. Furthermore, active species trapping tests with various scavengers elucidate a possible mechanism, indicating that center dot O(2)(_)and center dot OH radicals play a critical part in photodegradation reaction.