A novel approach using plant embryos for green synthesis of silver nanoparticles as antibacterial and catalytic agent

The plant extract has been used extensively for biosynthesis of noble metallic nanoparticles due to cost efficiency and simple technology. However, influence of plant growth condition can induce changes in composition and content of bioactive compounds, leading to difficulty in reproducing the metallic nanoparticles. In this work, we first utilized the plant embryos (Panax vietnamensis embryos—PVE) cultured under laboratory condition as a biosource for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). This method can reduce unwanted changes of bioactive composition in the plant. The formation of AgNPs was optimized to afford the best colloidal solution. The physicochemical properties were characterized using analysis techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermal properties. Size of crystalline AgNPs was determined in the range of 3–20 nm with a mean size of 10 nm. The applications were investigated for antibacterial and catalytic effect. The biosynthesized AgNPs exhibited high antibacterial activity against Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The excellent catalysis behavior of PVE-AgNPs has been investigated for the reduction of o-, m-, p-nitrophenols and toxic organic dyes including methyl orange, rhodamine 6G and rhodamine B. The effect of catalyst amount on the reaction performance was studied via kinetic investigation. This work unfolds a potential method for scalable reproduction of metallic nanoparticles.