A facile synthesis of nano-magnesia by ultrasonication assisted co-precipitation method for antibacterial activity

¹ Institute of Advanced Materials, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan
² Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
³ Institute of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Magnesium oxide (MgO) nanoparticles found considerable interest from the researcher because of their versatile biocompatible properties and the plethora of applications including anticancer, antimicrobial, antidiabetic, drug delivery, and tissue engineering etc. The growing applications of the MgO nanoparticles necessitate exploring new synthesis routes with faster production rates. Method: In this study, MgO nanoparticles were synthesized by ultrasonication-assisted co-precipitation method and calcined at 800°. MgO nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energydispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis. XRD results showed that the particles have a body-centered cubic (BCC) structure with a crystallite size of about 19.07 nm. SEM results displayed the spherical morphology of MgO nanoparticles. The impurity elements were absent as determined through EDX analysis and showed the high purity of the synthesized MgO. These particles are tested for in-vitro biological applications. The antibacterial activity of MgO nanoparticles on different bacteria was determined by the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) test. MIC test revealed that antibacterial activity increases by increasing the concentration of MgO nanoparticles. The synthesized nano-MgO showed high purity and spherical morphology and characterization analysis revealed that nano-MgO and biocompatible and can be applied in biomedical applications as verified by their bacterial activity test.