Phase-Oriented Zinc Stannate Nanoparticles via Low-Temperature Green Synthesis and Their Efficacy in Piezo/Flexo-Phototronic Antibacterial Therapies.

Despite the significant achievements of zinc stannate materials especially in piezocatalytic cancer and tumor therapy, they face challenges arising from the necessity for hazardous reductants for phase control at low temperatures and the requirement for further high-temperature annealing. To meet these challenges, herein, an innovative approach is developed for the facile synthesis of single-/mixed-phase zinc stannate nanoparticles at low temperatures using eco-friendly sodium borohydride as non-toxic reducing agent and explored their piezo-phototronic impacts on the elimination of bacterial infections caused by Escherichia coli (E. coli) for the first time. As expected, the perovskite phase inhibited 100% of the bacteria in only 30 min. time through the piezo-phototronic effect, the heterophase showed a strong antibacterial behavior of 99.66% under the same conditions. More importantly, even if its structure is not non-centrosymmetric, the spinel phase tends to exhibit flexo-phototronic activity with 96.82% success in eliminating the bacteria under the same times due to the increment of polarization through flexoelectric effects around strain-induced defects. This work regarding the phototronic properties of zinc stannate nanoparticles for spinel and perovskite phases in antibacterial processes will provide more inspiration for the constructive development of piezo-/flexo-catalysis applications.