Ocimum Mediated Biosynthesis of Silver Nanoparticles

Currently the need for various developmental models in material sciences to develop green technologies has been reemphasized. For biodiversity rich countries like India, low investment and sustainability of biological synthesis adds to its attraction. Plants respond to heavy metal stress by metal complexation process like production of phyochelations or by other metal chelating peptides. In this paper we report the synthesis of AgNPS from the room dried stem and root of Ocimum sanctum at room temperature. The reaction process was simple for formation of highly stable silver nanoparticles. The morphology and crystalline phase of the NPs were determined from transmission electronmicroscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and X-ray diffraction(XRD) spectra. Transmission Electron Microscopy studies showed that the average silver nanoparticles obtained from roots and stem were of sizes 10 ± 2 nm and 5 ± 1.5 nm respectively.