Physicochemical, Photocatalytic, Antibacterial, and Antioxidant Screening of Bergenia Ciliata Mediated Nickel Oxide Nanoparticles

This study was planned to synthesize a multifunctional nanomaterial that can effectively encounter the organic pollutants, multidrug-resistant bacteria and reactive free radicals. The Bergenia ciliate (B. ciliate) leaves extract was used as a reducing and capping agent for the synthesis of nickel oxide nanoparticles (NiO NP). The physicochemical properties were studied through X-ray diffractometre (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-visible and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopies. The highly crystalline monoclinic NiO NPs were synthesized with crystallite size of 27.45 nm. The average particle size derived from TEM micrograph was 49.35 nm whereas the calculated band gap for NiO NPs was 3.78 eV. The photocatalytic study shows that 92.17% of the rhodamine 6G (Rh-6G) was efficiently degraded in the presence of NiO NPs. The agar well diffusion method was applied to examine the antibacterial activity of NiO NPs and the activity was found higher against Gram-negative bacteria (GNB) as compared to Gram-positive bacteria (GPB). The ABTS free radical scavenging activity was also performed, however, the activity was found less than the standard.