Green-Synthesized Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles for Photocatalysis and Antimicrobial Use
This community develops zinc oxide nanoparticles, primarily through plant-based green synthesis, to degrade organic pollutants in water and inhibit bacterial growth in medical and food contexts.
The research focuses on synthesizing zinc oxide nanoparticles using leaf extracts and fruit juices, often combined with graphene oxide or other metal oxides to form nanocomposites. A major application is the photocatalytic degradation of dye pollutants, specifically methylene blue, under visible light. A second significant strand involves evaluating the antibacterial and antimicrobial activity of these particles, including their use in wound healing applications and food packaging films. The work frequently examines the structural and optical properties of the resulting nanostructures to optimize their performance in these environmental and biomedical roles.
The community is most heavily concentrated in zinc research, accounting for 5.9% of all tracked zinc papers and comprising 17,416 papers within this group. It also appears in research on oxygen, carbon, and titanium, though with significantly smaller shares.
There are 21,543 papers in this community, with the most frequent publication venues being the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, Ceramics International, and Inorganic Chemistry Communications.
Recent work continues to explore the antimicrobial mechanisms of zinc oxide nanoparticles against drug-resistant bacteria and their potential in dental applications, alongside the development of new heterojunction structures for the photocatalytic degradation of pharmaceutical pollutants like ciprofloxacin and rifampicin.