Boron nitride nanoparticles: Preparation, characterization, stability and evaluation of antibacterial activities

In recent years, antibiotics have been the ideal drugs for treating infections caused by microorganisms due to their broad-spectrum effects. However, as a result of the unconscious and widespread use of antibiotics, an important disadvantage of current treatments is the emergence of resistant bacteria. With the development of nanotechnology, nano-sized materials, which have entered our lives, have started to be used frequently in health. Nano-sized materials may form lower resistance compared to conventional antibiotics. Boron nitride has outstanding optical and mechanical properties; It is one of the boron derivatives widely used in biomedical applications today. In this study, boron nitride nanoparticles were obtained by emulsification-solvent evaporation method, characterization (size, zeta potential, PDI, SEM, FTIR and XRD) studies were performed, stability was investigated, and potential antibacterial effect on nine different microorganisms was evaluated by minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and agar-well disc diffusion method. In our study, boron nitride nanoparticles were successfully prepared by an emulsification-solvent evaporation method, which is a top-down technique, easily, rapidly and in high yield. Surprisingly, our 466 nm boron nitride nanoparticles with high negative zeta potential (-38.4±0.90 mV) and highly homogeneous particle size distribution (0.144±0.01 PDI) influenced all nine different bacteria. Our negatively charged boron nitride nanoparticles showed a very high inhibitory effect, especially on Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, even at very low doses (0.02±0.01, 0.80±0.23 and 0.05±0.03 μg/mL, respectively). This study was conducted to prepare nanoparticle formulations of water-insoluble Boron nitride, characterize them, stability and determine their therapeutic effectiveness on nine different bacteria. These findings may make boron nitride nanoparticles not only a reliable and effective antimicrobial agent in health and cosmetics but also an optimal alternative for food preservation.