Green chemistry approaches for the synthesis of metallic nanoparticles have become a new and promising field of research in recent years. Synthesis of metal nanoparticles [like gold (Au), silver (Ag), lead (Pb), platinum (Pt), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), cadmium (Cd), and other metal oxides such as titanium oxide (TiO), zinc oxide (ZnO), etc.] by various chemical and physical approaches as well as the biological approaches mediated by number of microorganisms have been actively found. Plant-mediated synthesis approaches are found to be more reliable and economic route to synthesize these metal nanoparticles. Owing to the biodiversity of plant biomasses, the actual mechanism by which the plant constituents have contributed to the synthetic process is yet to be fully known. Although the feasibility of controlling, the size and shape of nanoparticles by variation in reaction conditions have been demonstrated in many studies. Conventionally, nanoparticles are synthesized by chemicals and physicochemical methods using several chemicals which later on become accountable for various risk due to their general toxicity, so that solving the objective biological approaches is coming up to fill these gaps. The plant-mediated synthesis process undergoes highly controlled approaches for making them suitable for metal nanoparticle synthesis. In addition, biological synthesis of metallic nanoparticles is inexpensive, one-step, and eco-friendly method. In addition, the plant-mediated nanoparticles are used as potential pharmaceutical agents for various diseases such as malaria, HIV, cancer, hepatitis, and other diseases. Including this some other relevant information regarding nanopharmaceutical products, companies that are involve in the manufacturing and commercialization process and their clinical trial status are also discussed. This review article gives an overview of the plant-mediated synthesis of metal nanoparticles, possible compounds, and mechanisms that might be responsible for the reduction process as well as the potential pharmacological applications, currently available nanopharmaceutical products and their marketing status.

The synthesis of metal nanoparticles using algae has been unexplored, but it is a more biocompatible method than the other biological methods. Metal nanoparticle synthesis using algae extract shows rapid and non-toxic process which resulted to nano sizes having the greatest potential for biomedical applications. In this investigation, we studied the green synthesis of gold nanoparticles using the algae extract of Turbinaria conoides. Green synthesis of gold nanoparticles was preliminarily confirmed by color changing from yellow to dark pink in the reaction mixture, and the broad surface plasmon resonance band was centered at 520 to 525 nm which indicates polydispersed nanoparticles. Transmission electron microscopy and selected-area electron diffraction analysis show the morphology and crystalline structure of synthesized gold nanoparticles with the size range of 6 to 10 nm. The four strong diffraction peaks were observed by X-ray diffraction; it confirmed the crystalline nature of synthesized gold nanoparticles. The carboxylic, amine, and polyphenolic groups were associated with the algae-assisted synthesized gold nanoparticles which was confirmed using Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy. This study eliminates the use of chemical substances as reducing and stabilizing agent. Because it has natural several constituents which are fucoidan and polyphenolic substances, it does a dual function as both reducing and stabilizing agent for nanoparticles. Thus, algae-mediated synthesis process of biomedically valuable gold nanoparticles is a one-spot, facile, convenient, large-scaled, and eco-friendly method.

Nowadays plant mediated synthesis of nanoparticles has great interest and achievement due to its eco-benign and low time consuming properties. In this study silver nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by using Morinda tinctoria leaf extract under different pH. The aqueous leaf extract was added to silver nitrate solution; the color of the reaction medium was changed from pale yellow to brown and that indicates reduction of silver ions to silver nanoparticles. Thus synthesized silver nanoparticles were characterized by UV-Vis spectrophotometer. Dispersity and morphology was characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM); crystalline nature and purity of synthesized silver nanoparticles were revealed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). FTIR spectrum was examined to identify the effective functional molecules responsible for the reduction and stabilization of silver nanoparticles synthesized by leaf extract. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized silver nanoparticles was examined by degradation of methylene blue under sunlight irradiation. Green synthesized silver nanoparticles were effectively degrading the dye nearly 95% at 72 h of exposure time.

Utilization of biological materials in synthesis of nanoparticles is one of the hottest topics in modern nanoscience and nanotechnology. In the present investigation, the silver nanoparticles were synthesized by using the leaf and stem extract of Piper nigrum. The synthesized nanoparticle was characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX), and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The observation of the peak at 460 nm in the UV-vis spectra for leaf- and stem-synthesized silver nanoparticles reveals the reduction of silver metal ions into silver nanoparticles. Further, XRD analysis has been carried out to confirm the crystalline nature of the synthesized silver nanoparticles. The TEM images show that the leaf- and stem-synthesized silver nanoparticles were within the size of about 7–50 nm and 9–30 nm, respectively. The FTIR analysis was performed to identify the possible functional groups involved in the synthesis of silver nanoparticles. Further, the antibacterial activity of the green-synthesized silver nanoparticles was examined against agricultural plant pathogens. The antibacterial property of silver nanoparticles is a beneficial application in the field of agricultural nanotechnology.

Dental care is an essential phenomenon in human health. Oral pathogens can cause severe break which may show the way to serious issues in human disease like blood circulation and coronary disease. In the current study, we demonstrated the synthesis and antimicrobial activity of cadmium sulphide and zinc sulphide nanoparticles against oral pathogens. The process for the synthesis of cadmium sulphide (CdS) and zinc sulphide (ZnS) nanoparticles is fast, novel, and ecofriendly. Formation of cadmium sulphide (CdS) and zinc sulphide (ZnS) nanoparticles was confirmed by surface plasmon spectra using UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The morphology of crystalline phase of nanoparticles was determined from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra. The average size of cadmium sulphide (CdS) and zinc sulphide (ZnS) nanoparticles was in the range of 10 nm to 25 nm and 65 nm, respectively, and the observed morphology was spherical. The results indicated that the proteins, which contain amine groups, played a reducing and controlling responsibility during the formation of cadmium sulphide (CdS) and zinc sulphide (ZnS) nanoparticles in the colloidal solution. The antimicrobial activity was assessed against oral pathogens such as Streptococcus sp. Staphylococcus sp. Lactobacillus sp., and Candida albicans and these results confirmed that the sulphide nanoparticles are exhibiting good bactericidal activity.