Photocatalytic and Antimicrobial Applications of Cerium(IV) Doped Copper Manganese Oxide Nanoparticles

Ce⁴⁺ rare earth ions mixed metal oxides with chemical composition Ce_xCu_0.5Mn_0.5-xO₂ (x = 0.0, 0.01, 0.03,0.05) synthesized by co-precipitation technique. The as-synthesized nanoparticles were further calcined for 500 °C. The calcined binary and ternary nano oxides were characterized by powder XRD, SEM, EDX, FTIR, PL, CV, Antimicrobial and photocatalytic studies. X-ray diffraction confirmed the crystalline nature of the synthesized nano oxides with the crystalline size varying from 10 to 16 nm. The particle size is observed to increase with Ce⁴⁺ concentration. Morphology was analysed using SEM micrograph and the present elemental particles were found from EDX analysis. The confirmation of formed metal oxide bonds was done by FTIR. The PL spectra reveal strong emission peaks around 460 nm, 540 nm and 820 nm. The peaks show that all the samples include defect associated peak in the visible region. Antimicrobial activity was investigated against two gram-negative (klebsiella pneumoniae, pseudomonas aeruginosa) and two gram- positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae) and hence the zone of inhibition (30 μ L) was obtained. The electro chemical behaviour and hence the specific capacitance is determined from CV studies. The large value of specific capacitance shows that the synthesized nano oxides act as a promising material for electrodes. The photocatalytic degradation of synthesized Ce_0.05Cu_0.5Mn_0.45O₂ nanocomposite material shows greater % of degradation efficiency (97.78%) at 100 mg/L concentration of ARS dye.