Plant Mediated Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles-A Review

Developing an environment friendly process for synthesis of nanoparticles is a significant step in the field of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology involves the tailoring of materials at the atomic level to attain unique properties, which can be suitably manipulated for the desired applications. Among the all metallic nanoparticles silver nanoparticles draw more attention due to its unique physical, chemical and biological properties. Green protocol of synthesizing nanoparticles has emerged as an alternative to overcome the limitation of conventional methods. Plant and microorganisms are majorly applied for green synthesis of metallic nanoparticles. Using plants towards synthesis of nanoparticles are emerging and also beneficial compared to microbes with the presence of broad variability of bio-molecules in plants which can act as capping/stabilizing and reducing agents and so increases the rate of reduction and stabilization of synthesized nanoparticles. Among all organisms plants seem to be the best candidates for biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles and they are suitable for largescale biosynthesis. Nanoparticles produced by plants are more stable and the rate of synthesis is faster than in the case of microorganisms. This review focuses on the green synthesis of silver nanoparticles using various plant sources.