Synthesis, characterization and antibacterial efficiency of ZnO nanoparticles using rice as soft bio-template

Rice as a renewable, abundant bio-resource with unique characteristics can be used as a bio-template to synthesize various functional nanomaterials. Rice-doped Zinc Oxide nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized using co-precipitation method. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the prepared material possess polycrystalline in nature with hexagonal structure with (1 0 1) orientation for undoped material and (0 0 2) orientation for Rice-doped Zinc Oxide nanoparticles. Optical absorption analysis have indicated the red shift change in band gap value in the range between 3.6 and 3.9 to 3.75 eV is observed for undoped and rice-doped Zinc Oxide nanoparticles, respectively. The FTIR spectra have confirmed the presence of ZnO band at ∼850–900 cm−1. Photoluminscence spectroscopy depicted of blue shift in the wavelength in the range between 440 and 370 nm for Rice-doped Zinc Oxide nanoparticles. The antibacterial efficiency of ZnO NPs- doped with rice was tested against the growth of bacterial species using a disc diffusion method. The rice-doped ZnO sample exhibited strong antibacterial activity against the Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeroginosa and Klebsiella pneumonia.