Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

GREEN SYNTHESIS AND ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF SILVER NANOPARTICLES SYNTHESIZED USING FICUS AURICULATA FRUIT EXTRACTS

Vinay Kumar, Nirmal Kumar, Leirika Ngangom, Kunal Sharma, Manu Pant and Syed Mohsin Waheed

Abstract

Plant mediated synthesis of nanoparticles is a green chemistry approach that interlinks nanotechnology and plant biotechnology, since the biosynthesis of nanoparticles has been proposed as a cost effective and environmental/ecofriendly alternative to chemical and physical methods. In the present study silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were synthesized from Ficus auriculata fruit extract, and were characterized by UV– Visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infra-red Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) techniques. UV-Visible absorption spectra of the reaction medium containing AgNPs showed maximum absorbance at 435 nm. FTIR analysis confirmed the presence of various functional groups in synthesized AgNPs. The SEM analysis showed the synthesized AgNPs are irregular in structure having the size range of 5-40 nm. Green synthesized silver nanoparticles were checked for their bactericidal activity against E. coli DH5α strain with respect to plant extract and antibiotic kanamycin (25 μg/mL) as a control. We observed that the synthesized AgNPs have significantly higher antibacterial activity than kanamycin. Thus, the AgNPs synthesized could be put to use for checking and controlling bacterial growth and other therapeutic uses.