Abstract
In order to improve the antibacterial performance of natural palygorskite, spindle-like ZnO/palygorskite (ZnO/PAL) nanocomposites with controllable growth of ZnO on the surface of PAL were prepared in the presence of non-ionic surfactants using an easy-to-operate hydrothermal method. The obtained ZnO/PAL nanocomposites have a novel and special spindle-shaped structure and good antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), and are also low cost. The minimum inhibitory concentrations of ZnO/PAL nanocomposites toward E. coli and S. aureus reached 1.5 and 5 mg/mL, respectively.
Highlights
With the rapid development of industry, antibiotics for animals have become more widely used in many countries
Natural clay minerals that kill human pathogens could hold out hope for new economic uses and new drug designs, and the pH and oxidation state buffered by the clay mineral surfaces is key to controlling the solution chemistry and redox-related reactions occurring at the bacterial cell wall [12,14]
To determine whether the Span 40 and Tween 20 were capable of inducing surface modification on zinc oxide (ZnO)/PAL or not, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra were conducted
Summary
With the rapid development of industry, antibiotics for animals have become more widely used in many countries. Global antimicrobial resistance was discussed at the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China In this context, the use of antibiotics would be limited in consideration of the huge challenges of affordability and access of antimicrobials and their impact on public health. It is expected that an effective way to solve antibiotic resistance by combining clay minerals and active antibacterial factors will be developed. PAL is used as a carrier for loading of dodecyl triphenyl phosphonium bromide, which could be absorbed on the surface of PAL, the novel hybrid displays specific-targeting capability, long-term antibacterial activity and lower cytotoxicity [18]. PAL is used as the carrier for adsorption of natural antibacterial agents such as ginger essential oil, where the content of ginger essential oil in the composite was estimated to be 18.66%. PAL loaded metal oxide such as zinc oxide (ZnO) serving as an inorganic antibacterial agent has been prepared using several methods including the coprecipitation technique, microwave-assisted decomposition, wet chemical method, sol-gel method and hydrothermal process [22,23,24,25,26]
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