Construction of intimately coupled mesoporous Al2O3 nanosphere deposited 2D CdO with boosted charge separation, visible-light photocatalysis and bactericidal applications

Abstract Pristine Al2O3 and CdO are known to possess poor photocatalytic activity individually. The formation of CdO/Al2O3 heterojunction was investigated for the enhancement of photocatalytic performance. High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has been used to determine the crystalline feature and elemental composition of the NCs respectively . Peaks ascribed to Cd-O and O-Al-O was noted in fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. The NCs exhibits a high surface area (27.23 m2/g) to their contributing particles which was analysed using BET analyser. The band gap energy of CdO/Al2O3NCs was observed to be 2.95 eV which shows a considerable energy shift from its individual particles, CdO (2.73 eV) and Al2O3 (3.94 eV). The results displayed that the degradation efficiency of the CdO-Al2O3 NCs was enhanced 14 times than pristine Al2O3 and 3.5 times than pristine CdO. The MB dye has showed the half life period of 80 min. TOC analysis of degraded product supported high mineralization of the pollutants. The dye degradation was driven by OH. radicals and the CdO-Al2O3 nanocomposite possessed high reusability which was confirmed by six cycle test. Growth inhibition of E. coli, P. aeruginosa and B. subtilis was attained by exposure to CdO/Al2O3 NCs. The CdO-Al2O3 NCs can be a viable solution for degradation of organic contaminants effectively under natural sun light as well as an efficient antibacterial agent.