Fabrication of NiO-ZrO2 nanoceramics: a prospective nanomaterial for protein harvesting from microbial cells

Abstract

Nanoceramics are distinguished by their exceptional mechanical qualities, including considerable strength, good toughness, and high fatigue resistance. Utilizing a green combustion technique, we successfully developed these nanoceramics and characterized them comprehensively using UV–Vis, XRD, EDAX, TEM, and XPS analyses. Our findings indicate the formation of nanocomposites with distinct cubic phases of NiO and ZrO₂, confirming their polycrystalline nature through SAED and XRD. The developed nanoceramics were innovatively applied for bacterial cell lysis to extract intracellular components. Nevertheless, the previously published microbial cell lysis approaches are insufficient for cell disruption due to the cell firmness. Thus, a nanoceramic mediated protein harvesting methodology was proposed from Bacillus subtilis CP-66 cells and promising results (0.447 mg/ml) were obtained within 25–50 min of the abstraction process. This nanoceramic is also explored for their broad-spectrum antibacterial activity against three human pathogenic bacterial strains. This work highlights the many uses of our nanoceramic material in advanced materials science and emphasizes its potential in industrial and healthcare applications.