Effect of (Ag, Co) co-doping on the structural and antibacterial efficiency of CuO nanoparticles: A rapid microwave assisted method

[Display omitted] In the last decade, a great interest in doped metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) has been fascinated, particularly, as alternative antibacterial agents due to the spread of multidrug resistant infections. A lot of methods are available for the synthesis of NPs, but the microwave assisted method is facile, rapid, and improving various properties of the synthesized material. To date, little work has been reported to investigate the effectiveness of co-doped CuO NPs synthesized by using microwave energy, against the multidrug resistant pathogens. The aim of present study, therefore, was to synthesize, pure and (Ag, Co) co-doped CuO NPs (Cu1-x-y AgxCoy O) (where x = 0.02 M and y = 0.02, 0.04, 0.06, and 0.08 M, respectively) by rapid microwave assisted method. The prepared materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), Fourier transforming infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and UV–vis (UV–vis) absorption spectroscopy. XRD patterns proved the existence of pure monoclinic crystalline structure of synthesized NPs. Interestingly, the morphology was found to change considerably from nanorods to grain-like then to nanospheres with the variation of Co concentration. The optical band gap was found to be 1.42 eV for pure CuO and increases up to 1.58 eV with increasing cobalt content. The effect of (Ag, Co) co-doping on the antibacterial efficiency of the CuO NPs has been tested against four bacteria, namely, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.