Preparation and characterization of WS2 decorated and immobilized on chitosan and polycaprolactone as biodegradable polymers nanofibers: Photocatalysis study and antibiotic-conjugated for antibacterial evaluation

In the present work, WS2 nanoparticles and immobilized on chitosan and polycaprolactone as biodegradable polymers as photocatalyst were developed and studied for photocatalytic degradation of representative Neomycin as an aminoglycoside antibiotic. The WS2 nanoparticles were synthesized using the hydrothermal method. Further, the photocatalyst were characterized by different analytical instruments energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, and UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy, in order to understand their physical and optical properties. The mean crystallite sizes of WS2 nanoparticles, WS2/chitosan nanofibers and WS2/polycaprolactone nanofibers were 80.00, 70.14 and 68.71 nm, respectively. The optical absorption study revealed the presence of direct band-to-band transition with band-gap ranging from 2.0 to 1.8 eV for WS2, WS2/chitosan nanofibers and WS2/polycaprolactone nanofibers, respectively. The photocatalytic activity of the three photocatalyst was tested by UV-light-induced degradation of Neomycin antibiotic. The WS2/chitosan nanofibers and WS2/polycaprolactone nanofibers photocatalyst showed high amount of photodegradation in comparison to WS2 nanoparticles. The optimum degradation using WS2, WS2/chitosan nanofibers and WS2/polycaprolactone nanofibers occurred under UV light at pH:7 in 40 min. The bactericidal test was determined under light illumination (visible source light) and that the neomycin conjugated WS2/chitosan nanofibers and WS2/polycaprolactone nanofibers demonstrated good efficiency in antibacterial efficiency compared to pure WS2/chitosan nanofibers and WS2/polycaprolactone nanofibers.