Zno/Ag Nanocomposites with Enhanced Antimicrobial Activity

ZnO/Ag nanocomposites were synthesized using a facile chemical route. The as-prepared nanocomposites were characterized using XRD, SEM and TEM to study structural and morphological properties. TEM compositional mapping confirms the presence of spherical nanoparticles in the synthesized samples. In addition, UV- Vis and Raman spectroscopy were performed to obtain structural details. The effects of the presence of Ag NPs using UV-VIS spectroscopy that the appreciably enhanced absorbance in the visible region which can be observed increases with the atomic percentage of Ag, maybe due to the localized surface plasmon resonance effect (LSPR) of the Ag NPs. The measurement of the antimicrobial activity has been tested against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) It is shown that zinc oxide has a bactericidal power for these two groups of bacteria and also that when it is together with silver NP this effect improves, eliminating more than 90% of inoculated bacteria