Antimicrobial efficacy and safety analysis of zinc oxide nanoparticles against water borne pathogens

Abstract

Metal nanoparticles have been intensively studied within the past decade. Nano-sized materials have been an important subject in basic and applied sciences. Zinc oxide nanoparticles have received considerable attention due to their unique antibacterial, antifungal, and UV filtering properties, high catalytic and photochemical activity. In this study, microbiological aspects of scale formation in PVC pipelines bacteria and fungi were isolated. In the emerging issue of increased multi-resistant properties in water borne pathogens, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticle are being used increasingly as antimicrobial agents. Thus, the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) and minimum fungal concentration of ZnO nanoparticles towards pathogens microbe were examined in this study. The results obtained suggested that ZnO nanoparticles exhibit a good anti fungal activity than bactericidal effect towards all pathogens tested in in-vitro disc diffusion method (170 ppm, 100 ppm and 30 ppm). ZnO nanoparticles can be a potential antimicrobial agent due to its low cost of production and high effectiveness in antimicrobial properties, which may find wide applications in various industries to address safety issues. Stable ZnO nanoparticles were prepared and their shape and size distribution characterized by Dynamic light scattering (35.7 nm) and transmission electron microscopic TEM study for morphology identification (20 nm), UV-visible spectroscopy (230 nm), X-ray diffraction (FWHM of more intense peak corresponding to 101 planes located at 36.33° using Scherrer.s formula), FT-IR (Amines, Alcohols, Carbonyl and Nitrate ions), Zeta potential (-28.8). The antimicrobial activity of ZnO nanoparticles was investigated against Bacteria and Fungi present in drinking water PVC pipelines biofilm. In these tests, Muller Hinton agar plates were used and ZnO nanoparticles of various concentrations were supplemented in solid medium.