Abstract

BIOSYNTHESIS OF ZINC OXIDE NANOPARTICLES AND ITS CHARACTERIZATION FOR ANTIBACTERIAL AND ANTICANCER PROPERTIES

Zaid I.I Al-Luhaibi, Jaafar Faez Kadhim, Asimuddin M, Acharya Nagarjun. P, Kaiser Jamil*

ABSTRACT

Nanotechnology is a burning field for the researchers and more so for commercial applications. The nanoparticles finds its use extensively in medical chemistry, environmental remediation, atomic physics, energy and several other fields. Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a multifunctional material with its unique physico-chemical properties, and due to its low toxicity, makes it a material of interest for biomedical applications. Hence our aim was to extract ZnO nanoparticles from low cost materials like plants and determine its suitability for applications for antibacterial or anticancer properties. The biosynthesis of ZnO nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) was carried out from the aqueous solution of Azadirachta indica leaf extract using Zinc sulphate as reducing agent. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by UV-vis Spectrophotometer, FTIR, XRD, SEM and TEM. The nanoparticles were in a powder form of spherical shapes from 10-75 nm in size with average size ~25nm. These nanoparticles were used for evaluating the antibacterial activity against Gram-negative (Escherichia coli) which were more sensitive than Gram-positive (Streptococcus mutans) bacteria. We have also tested ZnO NPs on leukemic cancer cells (CML) using MTT assay, by exposing the cancer cells to various concentrations of ZnO NPs solution; the results showed good activity- however this needs further confirmation. It is concluded that ZnO NPs synthesized from plant extract (biological method) could be standardized and proposed as an antibacterial compound further, we present here the complete protocol for the green synthesis of ZnO NPs which was validated using physicochemical, and analytical methods.

Keywords: Nanotechnology, Nanoparticles (NPs), Biosynthesis, Zinc oxide, Characterization, Antibacterial properties.