Versatile silver nanoparticle using Tradescantia spathacea leaf extract: Synthesis, physiochemical, in vitro biological activity and photocatalytic evaluations

This study portrays the preparation of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using the leaf extract of Tradescantia spathacea (TS) through a green synthetic protocol. The green TS-AgNPs synthesized were physiochemically evaluated for its UV–Vis absorbance, IR vibrational behavior, powder diffraction nature, size and shape by HR-TEM procedures. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) spectra of the TS-AgNPs exhibit a SPR peak maximum at 415 nm; powder XRD analysis proved the purity and crystallinity of the synthesized TS-AgNPs. Particle size resulting from HR-TEM discovered numerous spherical particles with 18 nm average size, consistent with the XRD analysis. Presence of metabolites such as alcohols, phenols,coumarins, phytols, phytosterols, tannins, glycosides, and proteins were identified with preliminary phytochemical and FTIR studies. In vitro antimicrobial evaluation demonstrated that the resulted TS-AgNPs exhibited an outstanding antimicrobial activity against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria in a dose-dependent manner. Additionally, the nanoparticles showed dose-dependent anti-biofilm activity (89.45 ± 3.56 % activity at 200 μg/mL), DPPH scavenging activity (96.5 ± 3.1 % at 200 μg/mL with an IC50 value of 43.62), and inhibition of heat-induced albumin denaturation (in vitro anti-inflammatory activity) with 61.52 ± 2.25 % at 400 µg/mL, comparable to the diclofenac standard (94.78 % at 400 μg/mL). Furthermore, the TS-AgNPs demonstrated an excellent blood compatibility, cytotoxicity against MCF-7 cancer cell lines and exhibits photocatalytic activity in degrading Congo red dye (96.19 % degradation was achieved).