EVALUATING THE PRODUCTION POTENTIAL OF SIX (6) COMBRETUM SPECIES IN THE BIOMIMETIC SYNTHESIS OF SILVER NANOPARTICLES

Abstract

Existing research has shown that plants are best suited for the ecofriendly green synthesis of nanoparticles. This study reported novel findings on the biomimetic synthesis of silver nanoparticles using the aqueous leaf extract of six medicinal plant species in the genus, Combretum (C. paniculatum, C. dolichopetalum, C. platypterum, C racemosum, C. bauchiense, and C. demeusei). It was concerned with the characterization, phytochemical screening, antimicrobial and cytological evaluation of the synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The novelty of this study lies in the creation of a nanoparticle production index (NPPI) of the species based on their crystalline sizes (in nm) and yield (in mg/l) of AgNPs. This NPPI can be defined as a measure of the quantity of particles produced with respect to the experimental species.  The study also investigated whether these species would produce similar results since they belong to the same genus. It was observed that the smaller the size of the nanoparticles, the higher the production index. The highest production index was observed in C. paniculatum (18.75 nm, 144. 6 mg/l), and the least in C. demeusei (0 nm, 6.3 mg/l). The AgNPs were characterized using various standard analytical techniques. The X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that the species showed 2 theta values in the 40° range, all corresponding to miller indices of (200). The synthesized AgNPs showed varying but significant antimicrobial activities. Also, majority of the species showed a high NPPI. The study heralds a system, “phytonanotaxonomy”, the classification of plants of the same taxa based on their NPPI.