Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles from Vitex negundo Plant by Green Method and their Bactericidal Effects

Abstract

Emerging nanotechnology has a significant impact on diverse fields such as medical, information technology, energy, advanced materials, textile, and many new upcoming areas. Out of all methods to produce nanoparticles, the green synthesis is the best one as it is cost-effective, non-toxic in nature, simple at feasible conditions. In our study, we are fabricating silver nanoparticles by a single-step green synthesis method using the water extract of the leaves of the Vitex negundo plant. The plant is well known for its rich supply of biologically active compounds. The plant consists of flavonoids, polyphenols, terpenoids, and many more metabolite compounds that are used to prevent many diseases. These help as a capping agent and stabilizing agent in the process of forming silver nanoparticles from silver nitrate solution. Thus, fabricated silver nanoparticles are subjected to characterization techniques such as UV-Visible spectroscopy, FTIR, DLS, SEM with EDX, and XRD to determine silver nanoparticles' size, structure, and shape. Further, the antimicrobial activity of these silver nanoparticles is evaluated against four bacterial strains. Two of them are gram-positive, and the other two are gram-negative. The gram-positive bacteria, namely M. luteus and B. subtilis have shown good activity compared to gram-negative bacteria, namely E. coli and Salmonella. typhi.