Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles and its Applications—A Review

Abstract

Abstract

Silver has been used time immemorial in the household for its antimicrobial activity. Due to advancement in healthcare research, antibiotics with better antimicrobial activities were developed by human beings. Due to overuse of antibiotics, pathogenic microorganisms start developing resistance against antibiotics. Nowadays antibiotic resistance has become a major healthcare problem. This shifted healthcare researchers to exploit antimicrobial property of silver to combat against resistant pathogenic microorganisms. Nanotechnology has emerged as hope to treat resistant microorganisms in recent past. Researchers have started synthesizing silver nanoparticles from physical, chemical and biological methods with unique properties. But use of toxic chemicals in physical and chemical methods, biological methods became popular for synthesis of silver nanoparticles. Green synthesis of silver nanoparticles has been done from plants, bacteria, fungi, algae, yeasts etc. It is easy to synthesize silver nanoparticles from biological sources without need of toxic chemicals, thus are eco-friendly. Silver nanoparticles from biological methods have been explored for their unique antibacterial, antifungal and anticancer activities by researchers. This review article focusses on green synthesis of silver nanoparticles from biological sources and their applications.

Keywords: Nanoparticles, green synthesis, silver nanoparticles

Cite this Article

Naresh Kumar, Raj Kumar Salar, Ravinder Kumar et al. Green synthesis of silver nanoparticles and its applications—A review. Nano Trends: A Journal of Nanotechnology and Its Applications. 2017; 19(3): 1–22p.