Graphene oxide-ZnO nanorods for efficient dye degradation, antibacterial and in-silico analysis

Numerous concentrations of graphene oxide (GO)-doped into ZnO nanostructures were synthesized with co-precipitations method. The characterization of the designed composite was carried out using a number of techniques, and their photocatalytic ability was also evaluated. The parameters such as plane orientation, interplanar distance as confirmed using XRD were consistent with HRTEM results. The PL analysis revealed a blueshift in the energies associated with NBEs, which verified the impact of dopant quenching. The findings indicate that ZnO was loaded uniformly on the GO surface due to an efficient interface coupling. Due to such interface coupling between ZnO and GO, electrons can be passed directly from the ZnO (VB) to the GO. The facile nanocomposites (NCs) exhibited excellent photoactivity and are considered to offer a new path for designing next-generation graphene-based semiconductor composites. Furthermore, as-synthesized samples exhibited promising bactericidal potential towards gram-positive (G + ve) and gram-negative (G − ve) bacteria in S. aures and E. coli media, respectively for bacterium. Furthermore, molecular docking studies was employed to unveil the mystery behind bactericidal activity of GO-ZnO NRs and suggested inhibition of β-lactamase and DNA gyrase as mechanism behind these in vitro findings.