J Nanopart Res (2010) 12:1711–1721
DOI 10.1007/s11051-010-9894-5
RESEARCH PAPER
Qualitative assessment of silver and gold nanoparticle
synthesis in various plants: a photobiological approach
Pala Rajasekharreddy • Pathipati Usha Rani
Bojja Sreedhar
Received: 16 December 2009 / Accepted: 1 March 2010 / Published online: 18 March 2010
Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Abstract The development of rapid and ecofriendly
processes for the synthesis of silver (Ag) and gold
(Au) nanoparticles is of great importance in the field
of nanotechnology. In this study, the extracellular
production of Ag and Au nanoparticles was carried
out from the leaves of the plants, Tridax procumbens
L. (Coat buttons), Jatropa curcas L. (Barbados nut),
Calotropis gigantea L. (Calotropis), Solanum melon-
gena L. (Eggplant), Datura metel L. (Datura), Carica
papaya L. (Papaya) and Citrus aurantium L. (Bitter
orange) by the sunlight exposure method. Qualitative
comparisons of the synthesized nanoparticles
between the plants were measured. Among these
T. procumbens, J. curcas and C. gigantea plants
synthesized \20 nm sized and spherical-shaped Ag
particles, whereas C. papaya, D. metel and
S. melongena produced \20 nm sized monodispersed
Au particles. The amount of nanoparticles synthe-
sized and its qualitative characterization was done by
UV–vis spectroscopy and transmission electron
microscopy (TEM), respectively. X-ray diffraction
P. Rajasekharreddy
P. Usha Rani (&)
Biology and Biotechnology Division, Indian Institute
of Chemical Technology, Tarnaka, Hyderabad 500607,
Andhra Pradesh, India
e-mail: purani@iict.res.in; usharani65@yahoo.com
B. Sreedhar
Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Laboratory,
Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Tarnaka,
Hyderabad 500607, Andhra Pradesh, India
•
(XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)
were used for structural confirmation. Further anal-
ysis carried out by fourier transform infrared spec-
troscopy (FTIR), provided evidence for the presence
of amino groups, which increased the stability of the
synthesized nanoparticles.
Keywords Silver nanoparticles

Gold nanoparticles
Biogenic synthesis of
nanoparticles
Sunlight
Nanobiotechnology
Introduction
Nanomaterials synthesis and their characterization is
an emerging field of nanotechnology from the past
two decades, due to their huge applications in the
fields of physics, chemistry, biology and medicine.
With the development of several chemical-synthetic
techniques, the concern for environmental contami-
nations is also heightened as the chemical synthesis
protocols need some toxic chemicals for synthesis
(Song and Kim 2008). Most of the physical methods
deal with enormous consumption of energy to
maintain the high pressure and temperature employed
in the synthesis procedures. With the increasing
interest in minimization of waste and implementation
of sustainable processes through the adoption of
all the fundamental principles of green chemistry
(Anastas and Warner 1998), the development of
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ecofriendly and simple approaches for the preparation Ag? and AuCl4- ions using plant extracts, at direct
of advanced materials is desirable. sunlight condition. The amount of nanoparticles syn-
Synthesis of nanoparticles through biological meth- thesized and qualitative differences between synthe-
ods is a good alternative over the chemical and the sized nanoparticles were also investigated by various
physical methods as they are both environment analytical methods. This is simple and biomimetic
friendly and economic. The synthesis of nanomaterials approach used to produce crystalline nanostructures
by the use of green chemicals has vital importance in such as Ag and Au. Among the proposed plants, the
medicinal and technological aspects (Zhang et al. callus as well as the fruit extract of C. papaya and the
2007; Kattumuri et al. 2007). Biologically synthesized leaf extract of D. metel were used for the synthesis of Ag
silver (Ag) nanoparticles have wide range of applica- nanoparticles earlier (Mude et al. 2009; Jain et al. 2009;
tions because of their remarkable physical and chem-
ical properties. These have potential applications, as
optical receptors (Schultz et al. 2000), as catalysts in
chemical reactions, for biolabelling (Hayat 1990) as
antimicrobials (Kowshik et al. 2003; Dabbagh et al.
2008; Duran et al. 2005). Whereas, nano gold (Au)
helps in analytical methods such as colorimetric
techniques for the determination of heavy metal ions
in aqueous solutions (Armendariz et al. 2002), as
catalysts (Grisel et al. 2002) and as sensors (Yanez-
Sedeno and Pingarron 2005). Both Ag and Au nano-
particles are excellent nanomaterials providing a
powerful platform in biomedical applications of bio-
molecular recognition, biosensing, drug delivery and
molecular imaging (Sperling et al. 2008; Wilson 2008).
Fig. 1 UV–vis absorption spectra of colloidal Ag nanoparti-
The role of plant biochemicals for the synthesis of cles synthesized using (a) S. melongena, (b) D. metel, (c)
nano Ag and Au particles is directly related to the C. papaya, (d) C. aurantium, (e) T. procumbens, (f) J. curcas
mechanisms of nanotechnology and green chemistry. and (g) C. gigantea leaf extracts. The inset of the figure shows
glass vials of the silver nanoparticle solution formed at the end
Quite a few reports are available in the literature on the
of the reaction
extracellular biosynthesis of Ag and Au nanoparticles
using several plants, plant pure compounds, microor-
ganisms and enzymes (Song and Kim 2008; Armendariz
et al. 2004; Chandran et al. 2006; Song et al. 2009;
Kasthuri et al. 2008; Krpetic et al. 2009; Mukherjee et al.
2002; Yasui and Kimizuka 2005). However, plant-based
nanoparticle synthesis can be advantageous over other
biological methods (microbial) the reaction rate for the
synthesis of nanoparticles is very high and there is no
need to grow the microbes, which is very cumbersome
and also no need to maintain specific conditions
(Shankar et al. 2004; Kumar and Yadav 2008).
Recently, the plants such as Azadirachta indica
(Shankar et al. 2004), Aloe vera (Chandran et al. 2006),
Emblica officinalis (Ankamwar et al. 2005), Cinnamo-
mum camphora (Huang et al. 2007) and Brassica juncea Fig. 2 UV–vis absorption spectra of colloidal Au nanoparti-
(Haverkamp et al. 2007) were used in the extracellular cles synthesized using (a) C. gigantea, (b) J. curcas, (c)
T. procumbens, (d) C. aurantium, (e) C. papaya, (f) D. metel
synthesis of Ag and Au nanoparticles. In this article, we
and (g) S. melongena leaf extracts. The inset of the figure
describe a simple one-step method for the synthesis of shows glass vials of the gold nanoparticle solution formed at
Ag and Au nanoparticles by the reduction of aqueous the end of the reaction

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Jayendra et al. 2009). Except those two plants all the
remaining plants were used for the first time.
Experimental procedure
The seven plants Coat buttons, Tridax procumbens (L.),
Barbados nut, Jatropa curcas (L.), Calotropis, Calot-
ropis gigantea (L.), Eggplant, Solanum melongena (L.),
Datura, Datura metel (L.), Papaya, Carica papaya (L.)
and Bitter orange, Citrus aurantium (L.) leaves were
collected from the trees growing in the fields of Acharya
N. G. Ranga agricultural University, Hyderabad, India.
The leaves were shade dried for 5 days at room
temperature (28 ± 2 °C). The plant leaf broth solution
was prepared following the method of Song and Kim
(2008) with slight modifications, by taking 10 g of
finely cut leaves in a 500 mL Erlenmeyer flask with
200 mL of double-distilled deionized water and then
boiling the mixture for 5 min before finally decanting it.
They were stored at 4 °C and used within 10 days.
For the synthesis of Ag nanoparticles, silver nitrate
(AgNO3) (Sisco Research Laboratories Pvt. Ltd) and
for Au nanoparticles, chloroauric acid (HAuCl4)
(Sigma-Aldrich) were used without purification. Ag
and Au nanoparticles synthesis were carried out by
taking 10 mL of leaf broth and adding 190 mL of
Fig. 3 TEM images of Ag
nanoparticles synthesized
from a S. melongena, b
D. metel, c C. papaya and d
C. aurantium plant leaf
extracts
1713
1 9 10-3 M aqueous AgNO3 and HAuCl4 individu-
ally, and the reaction mixture was exposed to direct
sunlight irradiation in the Indian Institute of Chem-
ical Technology (IICT), Hyderabad, India (latitude
17°N) in May 2009 from the time period between
11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. under clear sky conditions.
Periodically, aliquots of the reaction mixture were
removed and the absorptions were monitored in a UV–
vis spectrophotometer. The quantitative measurement
of synthesized nanoparticles were analysed in a Perkin
Elmer model UV–vis double beam spectrophotometer
from 300 to 800 nm, at the resolution of 1 nm.
Samples for transmission electron microscopy
(TEM) analysis were prepared by placing a drop of
the nanoparticle solution on carbon-coated copper
grids, allowing the solvent to evaporate. The quali-
tative characterization of nanoparticles was per-
formed on a FEI Tecnai F12 (Philips Electron
Optics, Holland) instrument operated at 100 kV.
TEM was also used for the study of selected area
electron diffraction (SAED) patterns.
The biologically synthesized Ag and Au nanopar-
ticles were freeze-dried and the dried powder was
used for X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The
spectra were recorded in Siemens/D-5000 X-ray
diffractometer using CuKa radiation of wavelength
1.54 Å and continuous speed of 0.045°/min.
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Biobased Ag and Au colloidal solutions were freeze- et al. 1998). These colours arise due to excitation of
dried and the dried powder was used for X-ray surface plasmon vibrations in the metal nanoparticles
photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. X-ray (Mulvaney 1996). The change of colour among the
photoelectron spectra were relied on a KRATOS plant species might be due to the variation in their size
AXIS 165 with a dual anode (Mg and Al) apparatus and shape of the particles. The maximum intensities
using the Mg Ka anode. The pressure in the spec- ([2.0 a.u.) after 25 min of reaction, occurs at ca.
trometer was about 10-9 Torr. For energy calibration 430 nm for the Ag nanoparticles synthesized from
the carbon 1 s photoelectron line was used. The carbon
1 s binding energy was taken to be 284.6 eV. Spectra
were deconvoluted using Sun Solaris based Vision 2
curve resolver. The location and the full width at half
maximum (FWHM) for a species was first determined
using the spectrum of a pure sample. The location and
FWHM of products, which were not obtained as pure
species, were adjusted until the best fit was obtained.
Symmetric Gaussian shapes were used in all cases.
Binding energies for identical samples were, in
general, reproducible to within ±0.1 eV.
FTIR measurements were carried out to identify the
possible biomolecules responsible for the synthesis of
nanoparticles by the plants used. The fourier transformed
infrared (FTIR) spectra were recorded using thermo
Nicolet Nexus 670 spectrometer in the diffuse reflec-
tance mode at a resolution of 4 cm-1 in KBr pellets.

Results and discussion

UV–vis spectroscopic analysis

Ag nanoparticles

The experimental results indicated a clear difference

between the nanoparticles synthesized from different
plant materials. Among the plant species utilized
for the biosynthesis, T. procumbens, J. curcas and
C. gigantea leaf extracts caused an increased reduc-
tion of the materials and thereby enhancing the
production of Ag nanoparticles than the remaining
plants (Fig. 1e–g). The results obtained with UV–vis
spectra of the colloidal Ag nanoparticle solutions
synthesized from the leaves of the plants, S. melon-
gena, D. metel, C. papaya and C. aurantium, is
presented in Fig. 1a, b, c and d, respectively. The
inset of this figure shows pictures of sample vials
(labelled a–g) that correspond to the peaks obtained
Fig. 4 TEM images of Ag nanoparticles synthesized from a
with Ag nanoparticle solutions a–g. The colour
T. procumbens, b J. curcas and c C. gigantea. Inset picture
transformation from yellow to yellowish brown is shows corresponding selected area electron diffraction patterns
the indication of Ag nanoparticles formation (Sastry of the silver nanoparticles

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T. procumbens, J. curcas and C. gigantea leaf extracts,
which were higher than about 0.5 and 1.5 a.u.
intensities reported with Neem and Magnolia leaf
broth solutions, respectively (Shankar et al. 2004;
Song and Kim 2008). This is evidence that quantita-
tively greater reduction occurs with T. procumbens,
J. curcas and C. gigantea and also Ag nanoparticles
synthesized rapidly when compared to certain other
plant extracts in earlier studies (Li et al. 2007; Shankar
et al. 2004). Whereas, in the case of S. melongena,
D. metel, C. papaya and C. aurantium synthesized Ag
nanoparticles, the transverse plasmon bands moved to
longer wavelengths with decreased intensity (Fig. 1a–
d). This might be due to relatively large, polydisperse
and anisotropic-shaped nanoparticles.
Au nanoparticles
Interesting results were obtained when the same plant
species were utilized for the Au nanoparticle biosyn-
thesis; quantitative estimations indicated a different
set of plants enhancing the Au nanoparticle reduction.
Among all the seven plants used for the synthesis,
S. melongena leaf extract caused the production of
higher quantity of Au nanoparticles followed by
D. metel and C. papaya. Figure 2a, b, c, d, e, f and g
shows the UV–vis spectra of the HAuCl4 solution
challenged with C. gigantea, J. curcas, T. procumbens
C. aurantium, C. papaya, D. metel and S. melongena
leaf extracts, respectively. The corresponding Au
nanoparticle solutions containing glass vials (labelled
as a–g) are shown in the inset picture (Fig. 2). It is
well known that the appearance of purple colours in
the reaction mixture indicates the formation of Au
nanoparticles. The appearance of pink-ruby red col-
ours was due to the excitation of surface plasmon
Fig. 5 Graph showing the
mean particle sizes of a Ag
nanoparticles synthesized
using different plant leaf
extracts and b Au
nanoparticles synthesized
using different plant leaf
extracts
1715
vibrations, typical of Au nanoparticles (Mulvaney
1996). The surface plasmon absorption peaks located
between 520 and 580 nm were observed for the
synthesized Au nanoparticles (Fig. 2a–g). This vari-
ation in kmax values indicate the varied sizes of
synthesized nanoparticles in different nano solutions
prepared by different plants, the quantitatively higher
number of nanoparticles cannot be related linearly to
the absorbance intensities. Among the plants used for
nano Ag synthesis S. melongena plant extract showed
the kmax value at 550 nm with an higher intensity of
[1.5 a.u. in 3 min of reaction under sunlight, which
were superior than the other plants used in same
reaction conditions (Fig. 2g). It might be due to the
rapid reduction of Au nanoparticles with S. melonge-
na leaf broth solution. Whereas with C. gigantea
extract, the reduction was comparatively slow and
only after 165 min the purple colour has appeared
(image not shown). The result obtained is interesting
in the context of time taken for the synthesis of Au
nanoparticles. J. curcas, T. procumbens, C. auranti-
um, C. papaya, D. metel and S. melongena plants
synthesized both Ag and Au nanoparticles within
25 min time, except C. gigantea. We presume that the
occurrence of insufficient reducing moieties for the
faster reduction of Au ions in C. gigantea is respon-
sible for this.
Qualitative assessment by TEM
Ag nanoparticles
The TEM visualization allows measuring the size and
shape of the synthesized nanoparticles. The TEM
images (Fig. 3a–d) shows the biologically synthe-
sized Ag nanoparticles obtained by the reaction of
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AgNO3 with S. melongena, D. metel, C. papaya and synthesized Ag nanoparticles exhibited Debye-Scher-
C. aurantium leaf extracts, respectively, for 25 min rer rings assigned (111), (200), (220) and (311) lattice
of time, under sunlight irradiation condition. The planes of the face centred cubic (fcc) structure (Song
mean particle sizes obtained with different plant and Kim 2008). These findings were supported by the
extracts are depicted in Fig. 5a. The TEM images XRD-spectra of the synthesized nano Ag.
(Fig. 3a–c) confirm that the obtained Ag nanoparti-
cles are irregular and spherical in morphology with
the diameters ranging from 20 to 40 nm. The
ellipsoidal nanostructures were acquired with
C. aurantium-reduced Ag ions (Fig. 3d) and are
apparent to be due to the high concentration of
reducing molecules present in this extract. A similar
result was obtained with phyllanthin-assisted synthe-
sis of Ag nanoparticles (Kasthuri et al. 2008). It can
be seen that the larger nanoparticles generally do not
adopt a spherical shape; instead, an elongated form is
preferred. The reason for these large-sized particles is
due to the aggregation of two or more nanoparticles
together which in turn result due to the presence of
excess amounts of reducing moieties and the inter-
actions between stabilizing molecules bound to the
surface of particles and secondary reduction process
on the surface of the preformed nuclei (Song and Kim
2008). It has further supported by UV–vis spectra
(Fig. 1a–d) showing a very broad band towards
longer wavelength region, which is indicative of a
wide range of nanoparticle sizes.
Small-sized Ag nanoparticles were formed when
T. procumbens, J. curcas and C. gigantea plant
extracts were used for the biosynthesis by 25 min in
sunlight irradiation conditions (Fig. 4a–c). It is
observed from the TEM micrographs that the parti-
cles are predominantly spherical in shape and
reasonably monodispersive. All the nanoparticles
were well separated and no agglomeration was found.
The smaller nanoparticles are generally spherical in
shape from the samples having less quantity of
reducing agent, i.e. T. procumbens, J. curcas and
C. gigantea. The mean particle sizes of Ag nanopar-
ticles obtained by these plant extracts are shown in
Fig. 5a and the estimated mean particle sizes were
\20 nm. The particles obtained with the above three
plant extracts are smaller in size than the Cinnamo-
mum camphora (55–80 nm) and A. indica plant (50–
100 nm) synthesized Ag nanoparticles (Huang et al.
2007; Shankar et al. 2004). Even after storing the
Fig. 6 TEM images of Au nanoparticles synthesized from a
solutions for 3 months, we could get the same
C. papaya, b D. metel and c S. melongena. Inset picture shows
monodispersed Ag particles as before. Inset pictures corresponding selected area electron diffraction patterns of the
of Fig. 4a–c show SAED patterns of all the gold nanoparticles

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Fig. 7 TEM images of Au

nanoparticles synthesized
from a C. gigantea,
b J. curcas, c T.
procumbens and
d C. aurantium

Fig. 8 High-magnification
TEM micrograph of a single
Au nanoparticle synthesized
from C. aurantium plant
leaf extract is showing a
surface coat around the
particle

Au nanoparticles However, the Au nanoparticles biosynthesized using

The plants, C. papaya, D. metel and S. melongena,
caused the formation of the smallest sized (\20 nm)
and predominantly spherical-shaped nanoparticles
(Fig. 6a–c), in comparison with C. gigantea,
J. curcas, T. procumbens and C. aurantium leaf
extracts (Fig. 7a, b, c and d, respectively). Figure 7a,
b, c and d shows the TEM micrographs of the
nanoparticles formed by the reaction of HAuCl4 with
the leaf extracts of the plants, C. gigantea, J. curcas,
T. procumbens and C. aurantium, respectively.
all the above plant extracts are entirely different to
that of C. papaya, D. metel and S. melongena plants,
and the polydispersed particles consisted of many
shapes such as hexagonal, triangular, spherical and
irregular and are comparatively larger in size
([50 nm) (Fig. 5b). The greater standard deviation
values also confirm the polydispersal nature of these
nanoparticles.
Typical TEM image of C. aurantium leaf extract
synthesized Au nanoparticle is shown in Fig. 8,
which shows a surface coat around the Au core

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particle that provides an extra size to the Au C. papaya, D. metel and S. melongena for Au
nanoparticles. However, the C. aurantium synthe- nanoparticles. All the other plants were excluded
sized Au nanoparticles were bigger in size and were from this analysis.
comparable to that of Ag particles (37 nm) synthe-
sized using this plant. This is the one plant which
produced uniform quantity and large size of both the
metals and did not show any difference in reducing
the Ag and the Au nanoparticles. Whereas, the other
plants differed in producing quantitatively and qual-
itatively diverse Ag and Au nanoparticles. However,
the reasons are unpredictable.
The small and mostly spherical-shaped nanoparti-
cles produced with C. papaya, D. metel and S.
melongena plant extracts is presumed to be due to the
presence of high concentrations of reducing chemi-
cals and was confirmed through the UV–vis spectra
(Fig. 2e–g). Similar changes in the shape and size
were reported in Phyllanthin and Magnolia-assisted
gold nanoparticle biosyntheses (Kasthuri et al. 2008;
Song et al. 2009). The related SAED pattern (inset
picture of Fig. 6a–c) shows principally rings corre-
sponding to the fcc crystalline structure of Au, which
is further corroborate with the results of XRD
measurement. Fig. 9 XRD patterns of Ag nanoparticles synthesized using (a)
From the TEM results, it is evident that the size T. procumbens, (b) J. curcas and (c) C. gigantea. The Bragg
and shape of both synthesized Ag and Au nanopar- reflections are indexed on the basis of the fcc silver structure
ticles differ with the plants used. T. procumbens,
J. curcas and C. gigantea plants created very small
and spherical shaped Ag nanoparticles, while
C. papaya, D. metel and S. melongena plants were
responsible for synthesizing the similar kind of Au
nanoparticles. The results were analogous to that of
Magnolia leaf-assisted synthesis of Ag and Au nano-
particles. In case of Ag the leaf broth concentration
was directly proportional to the particle size (Song and
Kim 2008), but in case of Au nanoparticles, it is
indirectly proportional (Song et al. 2009). The reason
for this phenomenon is not understood. It is intriguing
that each plant has individual capacity to reduce the
nanoparticles and it is also interesting that there are
qualitative and quantitative differences between each
plant in reducing each metal nanoparticle.

Confirmation of Ag and Au nanoparticles

Using XRD and XPS, further structural analysis

Fig. 10 XRD patterns of Au nanoparticles synthesized using
was carried out only for T. procumbens, J. curcas (a) C. papaya, (b) D. metel and (c) S. melongena. The Bragg
and C. gigantea plants for Ag nanoparticles, and reflections are indexed on the basis of the fcc gold structure

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XRD analysis
The structure of biologically synthesized Ag and Au
nanoparticles were analysed by XRD measurements.
A typical XRD pattern of the Ag and Au synthesized
by biobased process was found to possess a fcc
structure as shown in Fig. 9a, b and c (T. procum-
bens, J. curcas and C. gigantea) and Fig. 10a, b and c
(C. papaya, D. metel and S. melongena), respectively.
The Bragg reflections at 2h = 38.18, 44.37, 64.48
and 77.63 can be indexed to the (111), (200), (220)
and (311) orientations, respectively, confirmed the
presence of silver and gold nanoparticles. These
results clearly indicated that the nanoparticles were
composed of highly crystalline Ag and Au (Vig-
neshwaran et al. 2007). The reflections appear to be
broader for the Au nanoparticles when compared to
Ag nanoparticles, indicated that the small size of the
Au particles. There are no peaks for the XRD pattern
due to crystallographic impurities were found in the
Figs. 9 and 10 that is to say that the Ag and Au
nanoparticles obtained had a high purity.
XPS analysis
XPS is an important surface-sensitive analytical
technique useful not only for the identification of
elements present in the sample but also to know their
oxidation states. High-resolution narrow scans (Ag
3d) of the synthesized Ag nanoparticles (Fig. 11a),
showed binding energy peaks at 368.3 and 374.3 eV
corresponding to the spin–orbit splitting components
Ag 3d5/2 and Ag 3d3/2, respectively, which is
characteristic of Ag in the zero-oxidation state. The
observed high-resolution narrow scan for Au 4f
(Fig. 11b) could be deconvoluted into two spin–orbit
splitting components at binding energies 84.3 and
Fig. 11 XPS spectrum
recorded from the
synthesized a Ag
nanoparticles and b Au
nanoparticles
1719
87.9 eV which can be attributed due to Au 4f7/2 and
Au 4f5/2, respectively, characteristic of Au in metallic
form. The observed binding energy peaks for both Ag
and Au are in good agreement with earlier literature
reports (Huang et al. 2006; Senapati et al. 2005).
Formation mechanism by FTIR
Figures 12a, b and c (C. gigantea, J. curcas and
T. procumbens) and 13a, b and c (S. melongena,
D. metel and C. papaya) show the FTIR spectra of the
Ag and Au nanoparticles, respectively. The Ag
nanoparticles show peaks at around 3400–3450,
2910–2930 and 1620–1640 cm-1. These bands cor-
respond to the presence of hydrogen bond N–H
stretching (Narayanan and Sakthivel 2008), C–H
(from aliphatic chains) stretching of the CH2 groups,
indicates the presence of amino acids (Ramamurthy
and Kannan 2007) and C=O (from aromatic rings)
stretching vibrations (Patel and Chaudhuri 2009).
Therefore, the affinities of amino groups (from amino
acids) to the Ag atom in the presence of reduction
enzymes/proteins from three different plants are
shown in Fig. 12. It represents the decreasing fre-
quencies with C. gigantea, J. curcas and T. procum-
bens at 3448, 3435 and 3424 cm-1, respectively.
Figure 13 shows the FTIR spectrum of synthesized
Au nanoparticles and it is considerably different from
FTIR spectrum of Ag particles. The absorption
frequencies for S. melongena, D. metel and C. papaya
reduced Au were located at 3410–3550 cm-1 (N–H
stretching), 2924 cm-1 (CH (Sym/Asym) aliphatic)
and 1620–1640 cm-1 (aromatic rings), respectively,
suggest the presence of proteins on the surface of Au
core particles. The variations in the peak positions
indicate that the proteins responsible for synthesis of
Ag and Au nanoparticles are different. The previous
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1720
Fig. 12 FTIR spectra of Ag nanoparticles synthesized using
(a) T. procumbens, (b) J. curcas and (c) C. gigantea
Fig. 13 FTIR spectra of Au nanoparticles synthesized using
(a) C. papaya, (b) D. metel and (c) S. melongena
reports suggest that proteins can bind to nano Ag and
nano Au particles through free amine groups in the
proteins (Gole et al. 2001). Thus two different
proteins are utilized in the synthesis of both the Ag
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J Nanopart Res (2010) 12:1711–1721
and the Au nanoparticle. They acted as surface-
coating molecules and prevent the internal agglomer-
ation of the particles. Therefore, the nanoparticles are
stabilized in nanosolutions.
Conclusions
This study demonstrates the synthesis of small-sized
and highly crystalline Ag and Au nanoparticles by
sunlight irradiation method. The rapid reduction,
relatively smaller-sized and spherical-shaped particles
of Ag and Au ions using various plant extracts
provides several advantages in the direction of
biogenic process and also denotes the superiority over
the chemical synthesis in providing green, environ-
mentally safer method of nanoparticle production.
Acknowledgments Authors are thankful to Council of
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi for the
research grant and Dr. J. S. Yadav, Director of Indian Institute
of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, for the facilities and
encouragement.
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