Green synthesis of silver nanoparticles and characterization using plant leaf essential oil compound citral and their antifungal activity against human pathogenic fungi

Abstract

The various plant materials used for the biosynthesis of nanoparticles is considered a green technology as it does not involve any harmful chemicals. In this paper we have reported the green synthesis of silver (AgNPs) nanoparticles by reduction of silver nitrate into silver using plant essential oil compound citral. In this research the synthesis of silver nanoparticles using citral has been investigated by UV-Spectroscopy showed the peak at 440 nm. The synthesized uniformly dispersed silver nanoparticles with spherical shape was showed in scanning electron microscope and with an average size of 45 nm was shown in transmission electron microscope. The x-ray diffraction technique showed the powdery nature of silver nanoparticle and in Ftir Spectroscopy the chemical groups such as amide and methylene of synthesized silver nanoparticle was noted. The antifungal activity results showed that synthesized silver nanoparticle citral was highly active against clinically isolated human fungal pathogens, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Candida albicans,Candida tropicalis and Candida kefyr.