LAUSR

In this work, copper sulfide nanoparticles (CuS NPs) were synthesized using Calotropis gigantea leaf extract by adopting the sonochemical method, using a green approach. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared, UV–Vis DRS, fluorescence, thermal gravimetric analysis and zeta potential analyzers were used to characterize the synthesized CuS NPs. The photocatalytic degradation of safranin O (SO) dye revealed that the prepared CuS NPs exhibited efficient photocatalytic performance on sunlight irradiation. The degradation of dye in the absence and presence of catalyst was 6.44 and 80.53% in 60 min respectively. Moreover, the photodegradation of dye, when studied with reference to the amount of catalyst from 10 to 50 mg/L was found to be optimized. The SO dye was degraded sharply on the usage of 50 mg/L of the catalyst. The CuS NPs was employed as a sensor for the determination of various heavy metal ions using a fluorescence spectrophotometer and produced satisfactory results. The synthesized samples were screened for antibacterial and antifungal activities against selected bacterial and fungal strains with marked results.Graphical Abstract