Facile synthesis of Eu-doped ZnO nanoparticles for the photodegradation of the MB dye and enhanced latent fingerprint imaging

Abstract

To overcome the drawbacks of traditional techniques for improving latent fingerprint (LFP) and biosensing applications, such as low sensitivity, high background interference, complicated setups, and poor universality, we developed Zn_1−xEu_xO (x = 0, 0.25, and 0.5) nanoparticles via a co-precipitation method. On diverse porous and non-porous surfaces, LFPs coated with optimized Zn_1−xEu_xO (x = 0, 0.25, and 0.5) nanoparticles exhibit clearly defined ridge patterns with good sensitivity and little background interference. The Tauc plot determined the band gap energy, which declines with increasing Eu doping and was found to be 3.04, 3 and 2.95 eV for x = 0, 0.25, and 0.5, respectively; the increase in Eu doping levels in the ZnO host lattice resulted in enhanced photoluminescence (PL) capabilities. The photocatalytic activity response was investigated using the organic methylene blue (MB) dye as the pollutant. The photocatalytic activity of the Eu-doped NPs exhibited a higher performance of 94.83% compared with undoped ZnO NPs. Our findings open up new possibilities for utilizing optimized Eu-doped ZnO nanoparticles in forensic research and in the MB dye degradation process.