Eco-friendly synthesis of TiO2, Au and Pt doped TiO2 nanoparticles for dye sensitized solar cell applications and evaluation of toxicity

• Novel eco-friendly synthesis of pure TiO2, Au and Pt doped TiO2 NPs using Terminalia arjuna bark extract.
• NPs were characterized by XRD, Raman, PL, SEM with EDX, TEM, UV-Vis-DRS and ART-FT-IR analysis.
• Two step synthesis and NPs were of near spherical shape with an average size from 5 to 10 nm.
• The conversion efficiency of 3.44% for AuTiO2 NPs based Dssc's was achieved.
• Synthesized NPs antibacterial and antifungal studies proves the non-toxic and eco-friendly nature of the materials.

Driven by the demand of pure TiO2, Au and Pt doped TiO2 NPs were successfully synthesized using Terminalia arjuna bark extract. The eco-friendly synthesized NPs were characterized by UV-Vis-DRS, ATR-FT-IR, PL, XRD, Raman, SEM with EDX and TEM analysis. The synthesized NPs were investigation for dye sensitized solar cell applications. UV–Vis–Diffused Reflectance Spectra clearly showed that the expected TiO2 inter band absorption below 306 nm, incorporation of gold shows surface plasma resonant (SPR) near 555 nm and platinum incorporated TiO2 NPs shows absorbance at 460 nm. The energy conversion efficiency for Au doped TiO2 NPs when compared to pure and Pt doped TiO2 NPs. In addition to that, Au noble metal present TiO2 matrix and an improve open-circuit voltage (Voc) of DSSC. Synthesized NPs was evaluated into antibacterial and antifungal activities by disk diffusion method. It is observed that NPs have not shown any activities in all tested bacterial and fungal strains. In this eco-friendly synthesis method to provide non toxic and environmental friendly nanomaterials can be used for solar energy device application.

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