Comparative Study of Selenides and Tellurides of Transition Metals (Nb and Ta) with Respect to Its Catalytic, Antimicrobial, and Molecular Docking Performance S
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Altaf et al. Nanoscale Research Letters (2020) 15:144 https://doi.org/10.1186/s11671-020-03375-0 NANO EXPRESS Open Access Comparative Study of Selenides and Tellurides of Transition Metals (Nb and Ta) with Respect to its Catalytic, Antimicrobial, and Molecular Docking Performance S. Altaf1, A. Haider2, S. Naz3, A. Ul-Hamid4, J. Haider3, M. Imran5, A. Shahzadi6, M. Naz7, H. Ajaz1 and M. Ikram8* Abstract The present research is a comparative study that reports an economical and accessible method to synthesize niobium (Nb) and Tantalum (Ta) selenides and tellurides with useful application in the removal of pollutants in textile, paper, and dyeing industries as well as in medical field. In this study, solid-state process was used to generate nanocomposites and various characterization techniques were employed to compare two groups of materials under investigation. Structure, morphology, elemental constitution, and functional groups of synthesized materials were analyzed with XRD, FESEM coupled with EDS, FTIR, and Raman spectroscopy, respectively. HR-TEM images displayed nanoscale particles with tetragonal and monoclinic crystal structures. The optical properties were evaluated in terms of cut-off wavelength and optical band gap using UV-visible spectroscopy. A comparative behavior of both groups of compounds was assessed with regards to their catalytic and microcidal properties. Extracted nanocomposites when used as catalysts, though isomorphs of each other, showed markedly different behavior in catalytic degradation of MB dye in the presence of NaBH4 that was employed as a reducing agent. This peculiar deviation might be attributed to slight structural differences between them. Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus (G –ve and + ve bacteria, respectively) were designated as model strains for in vitro antibacterial tests of both clusters by employing disk diffusion method. Superior antibacterial efficacy was observed for telluride system (significant inhibition zones of 26-35 mm) compared with selenide system (diameter of inhibition zone ranged from 0.8 mm to 1.9 mm). In addition, molecular docking study was undertaken to ascertain the binding interaction pattern between NPs and active sites in targeted cell protein. The findings were in agreement with antimicrobial test results suggesting NbTe4 to be the best inhibitor against FabH and FabI enzymes. Keywords: Selenides, Tellurides, Solid-state synthesis, Catalysis, Antimicrobial, Molecular docking * Correspondence: [email protected] 8Solar Cell Applications Research Lab, Department of Physics, Government College University, Lahore, Punjab 54000, Pakistan Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Altaf et al. Nanoscale Research Letters (2020) 15:144 Page 2 of 16 Introduction risk at a global level. It is not feasible to eliminate these Transition metal chalcogenides TMCs (where M = Ti, non-biodegradable wastes through conventional water V, Nb, Ta, Mo, W, etc.; C = S, Se, Te) are highly promis- treatment methods [7, 34] due to their complex aro- ing materials that are suitable for use in a number of in- matic structures, hydrophilicity, and stability against dustrial sectors including electronics, energy conversion light, chemicals, and temperature [35, 36]. Therefore, and storage, photovoltaic, thermoelectric, and catalysis the development of effective, convenient, and econom- [1, 2] owing to their desirable optical, electrical, and ical degradation techniques has received paramount at- electrochemical properties [3]. Recently, selenides and tention recently [37]. To date, various practices based on tellurides doped with niobium and tantalum have re- physical, biological, and chemical methods have been ceived significant attention due to its potential use in ap- adopted to treat wastewater polluted with dyes [38]. plications such as in semiconductors, upper conversion These methods lack practical utility due to high capital of IR to visible light [4, 5], gas sensors [6], laser diodes, cost, low efficiency, sluggishness, and high energy input. medical diagnostics, photodetection devices, photo- On the contrary, catalytic reduction process is a pre- catalysis [7], superconductors, and topological insulators ferred option since it is relatively quick, inexpensive, and or semimetals [8]. Generally, transition metal chalcogen- low-temperature treatment [35, 37]. In this regard, sev- ides exist as MC2,MC3, and MC4 systems where M is eral transition metal chalcogenides such as VSe2 (photo- known as a transition metal and C = S, Se, or Te [9]. catalyst and supercapacitor) [39], Yb-doped WTe3 The lower selenides and tellurides, MC2, have highly lay- (ultra-short laser and amplifier) [40, 41], TaSe3 (super- ered two-dimensional (2D) structure [10] with metal conductor), TaS and NbSe3 (semiconductors) have been atom located between the layers at octahedral sites [11]. reported in the literature [7, 27]. Here, it is pertinent to Two dimensional (2D) materials including transition point out that much less attention has been paid to the metal dichalcogenides, graphene (first 2D material dis- study of catalytic reduction of methylene blue (MB) with covered in 2004) [12], black phosphorus, and hexagonal NaBH4 by utilizing compounds studied here. boron nitride [13] have been extensively explored due to In the biomedical field, antimicrobial properties of me- their unique electronic, structural, optical, and magnetic tallic composites have long been recognized and success- properties [14]. On the other hand, MC3 and MC4 are fully used for some of the most extraordinary innovations apparently non-layered structures which crystallize in in the history of medicine [42, 43]. Among transition quasi-one-dimensional configurations [15, 16] with in- metals, Ta compounds are reported as good antimicrobial finite chains of MC. Although, chemical formula appears agents due to them being unreactive, nontoxic, and bio- to be similar for both families but structurally they are compatible. Whereas, researches on Nb composites used slightly different from each other. These structural dif- as biocidal agents are fairly limited [44]. ferences give rise to variations in their electrical trans- In view of above, we intended to synthesize selenides port properties [17–19]. An important feature of and tellurides of transition metals (Nb, Ta) and to tellurides that distinguishes it from the sulfides and sele- undertake a comparative study by evaluating their cata- nides in its crystal structure, electronic configuration, lytic and antimicrobial properties. To the best of our and physical properties is the large atomic number of knowledge, such a comparative investigation has not Te. The diffusive character of valence orbitals [20]ofTe been reported to date. Solid-state technique was used to and its more covalent nature [21] results in strong spin- synthesize selenides (TaSe3,Nb2Se3) and tellurides orbital (SO) coupling [22]. Presently, materials with (TaTe4, NbTe4) and isolated products were character- strong SO coupling are of great interest in condensed ized via elemental analysis, FTIR, Raman, EDS, FESEM, matter physics [23]. In this regard, superconductivity in HRTEM, and UV-Vis spectroscopy. Furthermore, mo- low-dimensional quasi (1D) tellurides (NbTe4) with a lecular docking study was carried out to evaluate the large atomic number is under investigation [21, 24]. To binding interaction pattern of NPs with cell proteins of meet the increasing demand of nanostructured selenides locally isolated bacterial strains including E. coli and S. and tellurides of TM in various fields, a number of ap- aureus. The aim of the present study was to assess the proaches have been adopted to synthesize these mate- comparative behavior of tellurides and selenides of tran- rials including sol-gel [7, 25, 26], electrospinning [27], sition metals with regards to their catalytic, microcidal, oriented-attachment process [28, 29], chemical vapor de- and molecular docking performance. position [30], organic solution-based high-temperature synthesis [31], template-directed method [32], and Methods hydrothermal/solvothermal reaction [33]. The current study aimed a comparative behavior of tel- Substantial environmental pollution caused by toxicity lurides and selenides of transition metals was assessed to of organic dyes and pigments discharged as effluents investigate their catalytic, microcidal properties, and mo- from various industries remains a major source of health lecular docking analysis. Altaf et al. Nanoscale Research Letters (2020) 15:144 Page 3 of 16 Chemicals blue-MB in the presence of NaBH4. MB is a cationic dye, Niobium