Bactericidal Action and Industrial Dye Degradation of Graphene Oxide and Polyacrylic Acid-Doped SnO(2) Quantum Dots: In Silico Molecular Docking Study

[Image: see text] The present work demonstrates the systematic incorporation of different concentrations of graphene oxide (GO) into a fixed amount of polyacrylic acid (PAA)-doped SnO(2) quantum dots (QDs) through a co-precipitation approach. The research aimed to evaluate the catalytic and antibacterial actions of GO/PAA-SnO(2) QDs. Moreover, optical properties, surface morphologies, crystal structures, elemental compositions, and d-spacings of prepared QDs were examined. X-ray diffraction patterns revealed the tetragonal configuration of SnO(2), and the crystallinity of QDs was suppressed upon dopants verified by the SAED patterns. Electronic spectra identified the blue shift by incorporating GO and PAA led to a reduction in band gap energy. Fourier transform infrared spectra showed the existence of rotational and vibrational modes associated with the functional groups during the synthesis process. A drastic increase in the catalytic efficacy of QDs was observed in the neutral medium by including dopants, indicating that GO/PAA-SnO(2) is a promising catalyst. GO/PAA-SnO(2) showed strong bactericidal efficacy against Escherichia coli (E. coli) at higher GO concentrations. Molecular docking studies predicted the given nanocomposites, i.e., SnO(2), PAA-SnO(2), and GO/PAA-SnO(2), as potential inhibitors of beta-lactamase(E. coli) and DNA gyrase(E. coli).