Antimicrobial activity of iron oxide nanoparticles

The production and use of iron oxide nanoparticles are growing exponentially due to its wide applications in different fields of science and technology. The objective of this study is to synthesize iron oxide nanoparticles, and modification of its surface to make it less toxic. The iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by chemical co-precipitation method, and surface modification was done using chitosan. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized using different techniques like FE-SEM, UV-Vis, DLS, Zeta analyzer, XRD and ATR-FTIR spectroscopes. The toxicity of iron oxide nanoparticles and modified iron oxide nanoparticles was evaluated against Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli, and as a conclusion it was found that iron oxide nanoparticles have toxicity towards these test organisms at higher concentration, where as modified iron oxide nanoparticles doesn’t possess this property. The work confirms that toxicity of nanoparticle can be modulated by surface modification with biocompatible compounds, like chitosan.