Green syntesis of spherical gold nano particle by Water cress

Due to the wide applications of gold nanoparticles, there have been great demands for their synthesis recently. Chemical methods produce pure and Non-dispersive nanoparticles, but these are quite expensive and potentially toxic to the environment. It has been suggested that the use of biological organisms and their components could be a suitable alternative for the production of nanoparticle in an eco-friendly manner (green synthesis). Using plant extracts for nanoparticle synthesis can be advantageous over other biological processes because it eliminates the elaborate process of maintaining cell cultures and can also be suitably scaled up for large-scale synthesis. In this study leaf extracts of Water cress, were used for green synthesis of gold nanoparticles. Gold nanoparticles were formed by treating an aqueous HAuCl4 solution by different amount of plant leaf extract as reducing agent at different temperatures. UV–visible spectroscopy was used for monitoring of the reaction progress. The synthesized gold nanoparticles were characterized with Dynamic light scattering (DLS) size analyzer, Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The results show that only a few minutes were required for the synthesis of gold nanoparticles at 60 °C and 80 °C by 1000 μl of plant extract, suggesting appropriate reaction rates in comparable to those of nanoparticle synthesis by chemical methods. TEM images showed that spherical nanoparticles (size, 10–50 nm) were obtained at higher temperatures and leaf broth concentrations. The analysis of FTIR bands show that the Polysaccharides and proteins are probably involved in the bio reduction and synthesis of nanoparticles.