Investigation of photocatalytic and antimicrobial activities of BaWO4–MoS2 nanoflowers

Abstract

We have synthesized BaWO4–MoS2 nanocomposites by the simple co-precipitation method and investigated their photocatalytic activities with Rhodamine-B as a test contaminant. The BaWO4/MoS2 photocatalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX), Fourier Transform Infra-Red spectroscopy (FT-IR), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (B.E.T) techniques. The optical properties were investigated using the UV-Vis-DRS spectroscopy, and a clear red shift is observed in the bandgap energy of the synthesized BaWO4– MoS2. The nanocomposites exhibit a flower-like morphology with the required elemental composition of Ba, W, O, Mo and S. The photocatalytic activity of the BaWO4–MoS2 nanocomposites (75 mg) for dye (20 μM) removal is 95% upon a solar light exposure in 80 min. The photocatalytic reactions were found to obey the pseudo-first-order kinetics according to the Langmuir–Hinshelwood model. The repeatability of photocatalytic activity was also studied. Studies on antimicrobial activity reveal that the nanoparticles possess inhibition activity against staphylococcus aureus, pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans.