Structural, Morphological and Antimicrobial Study of ZnO/Ag Nanoparticles

Abstract

Metal oxide nanoparticles gain attention in the field of biomedical applications because of their unique physico-chemical properties and emerging out as an alternative to antibiotics. The major cause of most of the human diseases is the bacterial infection. However, antibiotics used in the cure show other complications to human health. Therefore, the purpose of the present work is to investigate the antibacterial properties of ZnO/Ag nanoparticles on the test bacterial strains, Escherichia coli (E. coli). ZnO/Ag nanoparticles are synthesized using surfactant mediated route in a single step and double step procedure. Here, CTAB and hydrazine hydrate used as a surfactant and reducing agents respectively. The synthesized nanoparticles are characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy for structure, morphology and compositional properties. The antibacterial activities of these nanoparticles are also studied using the agar-well diffusion technique. The result analysis shows that synthesized nanopaticles are spherical in shape, having particles of the size 6 nm and 13 nm in the desired elemental composition. ZnO/Ag nanoparticles possessed a strong antibacterial effect against E. coli. This study signifies that ZnO/Ag metal oxide nanoparticles exhibit stronger antimicrobial activity against pathogen bacteria E. coli which may works effectively on the antibacterial and antifungal infections.