One-pot green synthesis, characterization, photocatalytic, sensing and antimicrobial studies of Calotropis gigantea leaf extract capped CdS NPs

•First attempt for the synthesis of CdS NPs using Calotropis gigantea leaf extract.•The synthesized CdS NPs were confirmed by various physicochemical techniques.•CdS NPs shows improved photocatalytic performance in degradation of MB and EY dyes.•The fluorescence behaviour exhibited by CdS NPs were utilized for metal ion sensing.•The efficient antibacterial and antifungal performance was shown by CdS NPs.

Here, we report for the synthesis of C. gigantea leaf extract capped CdS NPs by a simple sonochemical method via a green approach. The obtained materials were thoroughly characterized by various physicochemical techniques such as UV-vis DRS, PL, XRD, ATR-FTIR, SEM, TEM, Raman, zeta potential and DLS. The TEM image shows the average particle size of CdS NPs as 20 nm. The photocatalytic performance of CdS NPs on the degradation of MB and EY under sunlight irradiation is investigated. The synthesized CdS NPs attain an efficient degradation efficiency of MB and EY dyes under 60 min of sunlight irradiation. To investigate the selectivity of metal ions, Pb2+, Sn2+ and Hg2+ were studied for their sensing property in a nanomolar concentration by spectrofluorometrically. The antimicrobial property of CdS NPs was also investigated. Our work suggests that prepared CdS NPs could be a potential photocatalyst, a sensor, and an active antimicrobial agent.

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