Enhancement in the antibacterial efficiency of ZnO nanopowders by tuning the shape of the nanograins through fluorine doping

•First report on the antibacterial properties of F doped ZnO nanopowder.•Physical properties corroborated well with the antibacterial results.•Tuning of surface morphology to enhance the antibacterial efficiency-F doping.

Fluorine doped ZnO nanopowders were synthesized from starting solutions having different doping levels of F (0, 5, … , 20 at.%) using a simple soft chemical route and the effects of the doping level on the structural, optical, surface morphological and antibacterial properties were investigated. The XRD studies reveal that all the products have preferential orientation along the (1 0 1) plane. The PL studies show that all the samples exhibit strong visible emission with a peak at 425 nm. The enhancement in the visible emission indicates an increasing number of surface defects caused by the doping of F. The obtained FTIR spectra confirm the incorporation of F into ZnO lattice. From the SEM studies, it is observed that the ZnO nanowires formed at 10 at.% of F doping level exhibit excellent antibacterial activities. Antibacterial activity of F doped ZnO nanopowders against Staphylococcus aureus was found to be significantly higher than that against the Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa micro-organisms. All the physical properties were corroborated well with the findings related to antibacterial activity. Finally, we conclude that, the analysis of all the results shows that F doping level of 10 at.% is optimal in all respects and is suitable for antibacterial applications.