Synthesis by soft chemistry of size-controlled zinc oxide (ZnO) nanocrystals for antimicrobial applications

Abstract

This work focuses on the synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) by the sol-gel method for antimicrobial applications. The influence of synthesis parameters on the size of NPs is discussed. The addition of water and an alcoholamine (Monoethanolamine MEA) during the synthesis made possible the crystallization of ZnO at low temperature (<110°C). Our experiments have also shown that these reagents exert an influence on the size of the NPs. The NPs after precipitation are recovered in the form of powders then characterized by different techniques: X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy. The crystalline domain size are calculated from Scherrer’s formula. The antimicrobial potential of these NPs has been studied. The technique applied for this evaluation consists in estimating the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the NPs by measuring the evolution of the optical density of the bacteria over time. The results showed that the synthesized ZnO NPs show efficacy on the Escherichia coli bacteria.

Keywords

• chimie douce
• sol-gel
• zno
• nanoparticules
• bactéries
• antimicrobien