Development of silver nanoparticles based on the method using quince seed mucilage for ascorbic acid determination.

Abstract

Nanoparticles are used in various fields such as chemistry, pharmacy, biotechnology, and food science since they provide higher sensitivity than traditional optical detection methods. Recently, synthesis of nanomaterials using green chemistry has become popular. Many phytochemical components are used in the synthesis of nanoparticles, including vitamins, proteins, polysaccharides, glycosides, essential oils and phenolic compounds. A novel green nanotechnology-based method using quince seed mucilage (QSM) was designed for the determination of ascorbic acid in pharmaceutical preparations. QSM, a natural polysaccharide, was used as a bioreducing and stabilizing reagent in the proposed silver nanoparticle (SNP)-based method. In the first stage of the developed method, silver(I) is reduced to silver(0) via QSM and spherical, homogeneous SNPs were prepared (QSM-SNPs). In the second stage of the developed method, SNPs nuclei were enlarged with the addition of ascorbic acid. The developed method was validated by performance parameters (linearity, recovery, and precision). Ascorbic acid determination was performed by measuring increase in absorbance at 420 nm. The limit of detection and limit of quantification for ascorbic acid were, respectively, found to be at 0.27 and 0.90 μM. The QSM-SNP-based method was successfully applied to effervescent tablets containing ascorbic acid. The standards of the excipients frequently used in pharmaceutical preparations did not interfere with the developed method. The developed QSM-SNP-based method satisfies the requirements of green nanotechnology. The developed QSM-SNP-based method is simple, fast, eco-friendly and low-cost.