Impact of Cu doping on ZnO nanoparticles phyto-chemically synthesized for improved antibacterial and photocatalytic activities

Green approach was employed to synthesize Zn1 − xCuxO nanoparticles (x = 0.0, 0.01, 0.03, and 0.05). The impact of Cu doping on the structure, morphology, and optical properties of ZnO nanoparticles was evaluated using XRD, SEM, and UV-vis spectroscopy, respectively. The XRD analyses confirmed that the samples have hexagonal wurtzite structure. The crystallite size, lattice constants, volume of unit cell, and bond length of the nanoparticles showed increasing trend as the Cu concentration was increased from 0 to 5% and vice versa for micro-strain and dislocation density. Atomic packing fraction was found to be 74.05% and bond length was between 1.990 and 1.996 Å. SEM image showed spherical, petal, and rod-like shape. Energy band gap (Eg) of samples red shifted from 3.38 to 3.27 eV. The antibacterial results clearly showed that Cu doping in ZnO NPs improved the diameter of inhibition zone across the selected bacteria and exhibited higher degradation efficiency after 100 min of irradiation.