GREEN SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION AND ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF SILVER NANOPARTICLES

Metallic nanoparticles have gained the interest of researchers worldwide due to their unique antibacterial, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties. There is a constant need for the sustainable green synthesis of the metallic nanoparticles with less involvement of the toxic chemicals. In this background, our group has synthesised the silver nanoparticles from the aqueous extracts of clove and cinnamon through green method. The aqueous spice extracts were used for the reduction of silver nitrate solution. The synthesised silver nanoparticles were characterised by the UV-Visible spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Antibacterial properties of the nanoparticles were evaluated on the Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus strains using the Kirby-Bauer antibiotic testing method. UV-Vis spectroscopy confirms the size of the nanoparticles to be around 30-60 nm which is further confirmed by the DLS and TEM techniques. Further, the antibacterial activity analysis showed that the bacterial samples (S. aureus and E. coli) treated with the synthesised silver nanoparticles showed minimum inhibitory concentration in the range of 25-30 μM. The study presents an environment friendly method to synthesise metallic nanoparticles showing good antibacterial activity. This work would help other research groups working in the field of biological application of green synthesis mediated metallic nanoparticles.