Fabrication of antibacterial IPN hydrogels as a proficient adsorbent for the sequestration of malachite green dye

Herein, a stimuli-responsive gum salai guggal-based interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) hydrogel was developed (SAGH-IPN-AC-IA) which was further modified into a silver nanocomposite (SAGH-IPN-AC-IA-Ag⁰) under the effect of γ-radiations. SAGH-IPN-AC-IA displayed 254% maximum percent swelling efficiency under optimized reaction conditions. The samples were sequentially characterized through SEM–EDX, XRD, UV–Vis, FTIR, HR-TEM and TGA/DTA/DTG analysis. The average particle size of silver nanoparticles inside the crosslinked IPN matrix SAGH-IPN-AC-IA was found to be 3.41 nm. SAGH-IPN-AC-IA displayed 91.83% dye removal efficiency for the sequestration of malachite green which increases to 97.44% with SAGH-IPN-AC-IA-Ag⁰ nanocomposite. The sequestration of malachite green dye was favorable with Tempkin adsorption isotherm (R² = 0.999) and followed pseudo 1st order kinetics (R² = 0.995). Furthermore, the SAGH-IPN-AC-IA-Ag⁰ displayed outstanding antimicrobial activity against B. cereus, P. aeruginosa, E. coli and S. aureus and with an average zone of inhibition equal to 17 ± 0.7 mm, 25 ± 0.7 mm, 18.3 ± 1 mm and 19.3 ± 0.4 mm, respectively.