Abstract
Herein, we report a one-pot microwave assisted method to prepare an efficient Fe2O3/Ag nanocomposites (NCs) using Aloe vera (A. vera) gel extract as a mild, safe, renewable and active stabilizer without any harmful reagent. The advanced characterization techniques including XRD, FT-IR, UV-DRS, PL, TGA, SEM-EDX, TEM, DLS, Elemental mapping, VSM and BET were applied to analyze the morphology and structure of the prepared Fe2O3/Ag NCs. The results exhibited that the Fe2O3/Ag NCs was successfully synthesized by greener route. Furthermore, these bio-reduced Fe2O3/Ag NCs was tested for its catalytic degradation toward methylene blue (MB) as a model contaminant and exhibited outstanding photocatalytic degradation efficiency with 88.2% removal rate in 140 min. It was worth pointing out that the Fe2O3/Ag nanoparticles facilitated the charge transportation and inhibit the charge recombination of an electron in the conduction band. Additionally, the prepared Fe2O3/Ag NCs was studied for their in-vitro antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria and anticancer properties against A549 cell lines (human lung cancer). The biological results of this study demonstrated that A. vera gel extract derived Fe2O3/Ag NCs showed significant inhibition properties against bacterial strains and also capable of achieving superior action against A549 cancer cell lines.
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•Sunlight responsive Fe2O3/Ag Nanocomposites was prepared by microwave assisted green synthesis via phytoreduction.•Fe2O3/Ag Nanocomposites was applied for photocatalytic methylene blue degradation and in-vitro biological applications.•The Fe2O3/Ag Nanocomposites exhibits high mechanical stability and efficiently degraded the methylene blue dye.•Fe2O3/Ag Nanocomposites exhibit excellent antibacterial activity against S.aureus and E.coli bacterial strain.•It also shows good anticancer activity against A549 cancer cell lines.