  pH of a solution is the ratio of H+/OH- ions. The relative ratio of these
charges may affect forming bonds during a hydrothermal synthesis by influencing
electronic clouds of participant ions, which can modify the structure and hence
crystallinity, strain, disorder, surface termination etc. These factors may
modify physical properties including the surface charge. This work uses
hematite nanoparticles to correlate the structural modifications to all these
properties and finally to the antibacterial properties due to the surface
charge interaction of the nanoparticles and the bacterial cell walls.
