Antimicrobial and electrical properties of ce‐ and ni‐doped zns nanoparticles obtained by a sonochemical method

Abstract In this work, cerium‐ and nickel‐codoped ZnS nanoparticles were obtained by a sonochemical method for 20 min. The nanoparticles were characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and microscopy electronic transmission (MET). The electrical properties are estimated through I‐V curves and the antimicrobial activity was analyzed against E . coli (gram‐negative) and S . aureus (gram‐positive) bacteria using the diffusion disk methodology. The diffractograms indicate the obtaining of cubic structure ZnS for the pure sample, whereas the doped samples present the cubic and hexagonal structures of the ZnS. The bandgap reduced from 3.60 to 3.52 eV, for pure and codoped samples. I‐V curves indicate an increase in resistivity with doping, being more evident for samples containing cerium. Antimicrobial activity increased as doping occurred, where the codoped sample showed the best results. Even for the low amount of dopant (1 mol%), the antimicrobial activity can be increased by about 50% for the codoped sample, compared to the pure ZnS. Thus, it is known that the doping of ZnS with cerium and nickel provides the stabilization of the hexagonal metastable phase, which acts to restrict electronic mobility and, consequently, improves the antimicrobial response of the material.