Plant-mediated synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles using Costus pictus D. leaf extract and its physio-chemical properties

Abstract

Plant-mediated method of nanoparticle synthesis has many advantages over conventional methods including the elimination of chemical reductants that makes it eco-friendly and cost-effective technique and the synthesized nanoparticles has tremendous scope for packaging, cosmetics, biomedical and agricultural applications. The bioactives and secondary metabolites present in the leaf extracts involve in redox reactions to synthesize ZnO nanoparticles from its bulk counterpart. In this study we have attempted to synthesize zinc oxide nanoparticles using leaf extract of Costus pictus D. which is commonly known as insulin plant. The synthesized zinc oxide nanoparticles were characterized for various physio-chemical properties using UV-Vis Spectroscopy, FTIR, TEM, EDAX, Dynamic light scattering and Zeta potential. The particle size analysis revealed that the ZnO-NPs formed was distributed between 50-130 nm and a sharp absorption peak at 301 nm was detected in the UV-vis region that corresponds to an optical band gap of ZnO NPs. TEM shows that the ZnO-NPs exhibit a near-hexagonal shape.