Synthesis and Characterization of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles for the Treatment of Water from Bacterial Infection

Abstract

Without water survival is impossible. But water is getting polluted with different pollutants such as bacteria. Various methods has been tested for removing organic contaminants, among which nanomaterials has got significant attention due to their unique size tuneable properties that make this suitable for antibacterial applications. In these work, zinc oxide nanoparticles were synthesized through the sol gel method for removal of bacteria from west water. The obtained nanoparticles were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM), photoluminescence (PL), UV-Visible Spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared ray spectroscope (FTIR). Then, the average crystallite sizes of 26.18 nm and 27.29 nm were obtained for the ZnO nps annealed for 90 min and 2 hrs respectively. The band gap energy of ZnO NPs determined using UV-vis absorption data were found to be 3.27 ev and 3.25 ev for 90 minute and 2 hour time of annealing at temperature respectively which increases as the size of ZnO nps decreases. The FTIR peaks showed relatives peaks at 433 cm -1 and 557 cm -1 for synthesized ZnO nps which have 26.18 nm and 27.29 nm crystallite size respectively which identifies the absorption peaks of ZnO nps. Evaluation of the antimicrobial activity of ZnO nanoparticles against E.coli isolated from the collected wastewater was done. Results indicate that ZnO nanoparticles could potentially be strong antimicrobial reagents to reduce the infection of water from bacteria. For the synthesized 26.18 nm ZnO nps the measured zone of inhibition was 12.07 ± 0.85 mm, 10.57±0.70 mm, 8.17 ± 0.95 mm and 7.37 ± 0.550 mm at concentration of 100 µg/ml, 50µg/ml, 25 µg/ml and 12.5 µg/ml respectively and for 27.29 nm ZnO nps the11.73 ± 0.38 mm, 10.33 ± 0.47 mm, 7.8 ± 0.87 mm, 7.2 ± 0.20 mm at concentration of 100 µg/ml, 50 µg/ml, and 25 µg/ml 12.5 µg/ml respectively. Overall, both the synthesized ZnO nps show the antibacterial activity and the antibacterial activity increased as the concentration of the synthesized zinc oxide nanoparticles increases.