Eggshell Membrane Mediated Synthesis of CdO–NiO Nanocomposite for Multifunctional Applications

Herein, we report the fabrication of Cadmium oxide/Nickel oxide (CdO/NiO) nanocomposite, pure CdO and NiO nanoparticles (NPs) using an eggshell membrane (ESM) as a bio template by combustion method. The structural (X-ray diffraction, XPS and FTIR), optical (UV–Visible spectroscopy), morphological (SEM with EDS), magnetic (VSM), antimicrobial, and cytotoxicity assay were studied. The formation of CdO/NiO-ESM nanocomposite was acknowledged by the existence of cubic peaks related to CdO-ESM and NiO-ESM NPs in the X-ray diffractogram. The average crystallite size was calculated using the Scherrer formula and is found to be 45.42 nm, 19.47 nm, 34.16 nm and 24.82 nm for CdO-ESM, NiO-ESM, CdO in CdO/NiO-ESM and NiO in CdO/NiO-ESM respectively. A band gap of (2 eV) was observed for the nanocomposite which stands between CdO-ESM (1.83 eV) and NiO-ESM (3.72 eV). Characteristic functional groups present were analyzed by FTIR spectra. VSM analysis confirms the presence of room ferromagnetism in CdO/NiO-ESM nanocomposite. The antibacterial efficacy of grown samples was tested against four bacterial species ( Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pnuemoniae, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis ) and within the mentioned bacterial species CdO/NiO-ESM showed the highest bactericidal activity against S. aureus with a zone of inhibition of 32 ± 0.39 and 35 ± 0.18 mm at 75 µg/mL and 100 µg/mL respectively. Furthermore, the synthesized samples were screened for anticancer activity against the HepG2 cell line (MTT assay). The nanocomposite performs significant cytotoxic activity (IC 50 = 74.81 µg/mL).