Influence of Bio-Inspired Ag doped MoO3 Nanoparticles in the Seedling Growth and Inhibitory Action Against Microbial Organisms

Abstract Herein we report the hydrothermal synthesis, characterization and biological applications of h-MoO3 and silver doped MoO3 nanoparticles (NPs). The phase formation of the synthesized NPs was identified using X-ray diffraction studies and vibrational spectral studies. The average crystallite size of the NPs tends to decrease as the dopant concentration increases. The surface morphology and the elemental composition of the nanoparticles were observed from SEM and EDAX analysis. The crystallite nature was obtained from HRTEM images. The band gap energies obtained from UV-DRS spectra for h-MoO3 (3.26 eV) were starting to decrease as the concentration of the dopant Ag increases (3.22-2.76eV). The antibacterial activity of the prepared nanoparticles was tested against some gram positive and gram negative bacterial strains viz., Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus and Citrobacter koseri and Pseudomonas aeruginosa respectively. Also their seed germination properties were studied on foxtail and finger millet seeds for a period of seven days.