Copper-based green metal organic framework nanoparticles for antibacterial and photocatalytic applications

The objective of the present study is to fabricate an effective metal organic framework -nanoparticles (MOF-NPs) based photocatalyst and antibacterial agent using single step precipitation method. The facile and green approach using an aqueous solvent for the synthesis of copper-based metal-organic framework using the oxalate ion as a linker is presented. The MOF-NPs obtained from copper-oxalate ion in distilled water is represented as (COD). Additionally, the same framework was synthesized using the copper-oxalate ion in methanol, which is represented as (COM) for comparison. The structural, morphological and optical properties of the prepared MOF-NPs were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), UV–visible analysis. The COD falls in the range of 40–60 nm while COM ranges between 7 and 8 nm and correspondingly the band gap of 3.35 and 3.37 eV helped the samples to perform efficiently in UV region. The results exhibited favorable photocatalytic efficiency of 88.45 and 89.23 % for the removal of methylene blue (dye concentration = 10 ppm; time = 120 min; photocatalyst dosage = 10, 20, 30 mg and irradiation source = UV light) and good bacterial inhibition against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The performance of the as-prepared MOF-NPs showed the potential in environmental remediation.