Zinc stannate flakes for optoelectronic and antibacterial applications

In this work we investigated the antibacterial application of zinc stannate grown using hydrothermal method at relatively low temperature of 100 °C. A systematic study was conducted by varying the molarity, pH and Zn/Sn ratio of the precursor solution, to obtain phase pure zinc stannate in one of its form, ZnSnO3. The structural, optical and morphological characterization of the obtained sample were performed by using X-ray diffraction analysis, UV-Visible spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy respectively. The antibacterial activity of the prepared sample against Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogenic bacteria was evaluated using quantitative well diffusion assay. The studies revelled that the pH, molarity of precursor solution and Zn/Sn ratio were found to influence the structural and optical properties of the obtained compound. The sample prepared with molarity 0.5M at a pH 12.5 exhibited the formation of crystalline single phase fcc ZnSnO3. As the pH of the precursor solution decreases the...