Figure 1.

Illustration of the antimicrobial property of ZnO-NPs against the bacterial cell wall. They act as potent antibacterial agents through these possible steps: (1) production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) causing oxidative stress, and membrane and DNA damage leading to bacterial death; (2) dissolution of ZnO-NPs into Zn²⁺ and interference with bacterial enzymes, proteins, and amino acids; and (3) electrostatic interaction between ZnO-NPs and cell membrane, resulting in membrane plasma damage and intracellular content leakage. (Reprinted from [29]; open access under CC BY).