Chemically Grown MoO3 Nanorods for Antibacterial Activity Study

In the present investigation, sea urchin like morphology of h-MoO 3 nanorods are successfully synthesized by chemical bath deposition (CBD) technique. The thermal stability, structural details, morphology and compositional analysis of MoO 3 was done using thermogravimetry (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques respectively. The thermal analysis reveals presence of sharp exothermic peak at 409C indicating irreversible phase transition. X-ray diffraction pattern showed hexagonal to orthorhombic phase transition after annealing at 450C. As synthesized h-MoO 3 shows well oriented hexagonal rods with sea urchin like architecture while that of annealed MoO 3 sample revealed 2D layer by layer growth. The SAED pattern confirms single crystalline nature of as synthesized h-MoO 3 and polycrystalline nature of annealed -MoO 3 . While XPS study of both confirms Mo +6 and O 2-oxidation states of elements. Furthermore, characteristic antibacterial properties of h-MoO 3 and -MoO 3 against gram positive Bacillus megaterium, Streptococcus aureus and gram negative Escherichia coli is noted.