Biomolecules Assisted Synthesis Of Metal Nanoparticles

The synthesis of metal nanoparticles is an upcoming area of research as these nanoparticles have applications in diverse field. These are beneficial to human beings as they can be used for targeting the diseases like cancer, used as therapeutic agents, as biosensors and in imaging. These are also employed in removal of heavy metals and phenolic pollutants from soil and water and have excellent catalytic properties. Thus, there is a need to develop the protocols or methods which can synthesize these nanoparticles at large scale, also the methods should be environment friendly and economical. Lot of reviews have been published so far on the techniques and methods of synthesis of these nanoparticles citing the advantage and disadvantage of each method. In this chapter biosynthesis of metal nanoparticles have been described, the synthesis of silver and gold nanoparticles is discussed at length. These can be synthesized by physical, chemical and biological methods. Biological methods are considered better over other methods of synthesis as they do not employ any toxic chemicals or reagents; only the biomolecules present in the organisms serves as the reducing and stabilizing agent. In nature we have a great diversity of plants and animals available to us, thus have a wider choice of the reducing agents which can reduce the metal ions. Multicellular and unicellular organisms are known to accumulate metals; this property is mainly exploited in the synthesis process.