Study of Potential Anticancer, Antibacterial, Antioxidant and Photocatalytic Activities of Microwave Assisted Gold Nanoparticles using Limonia acidissima Fruit Pulp Extract

Abstract

In this work, synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) by microwave irradiation of Limonia acidissima fruit pulp is described. The optical, structural and morphological properties were evaluated for the synthesized nanoparticles. The UV-vis spectra of the formed AuNPs, the peak at 525 nm indicates the reduction of Au3+ ions into metal nanopartciles. The XRD analysis of AuNPs revealed their FCC structure and by looking at the TEM images, it can be seen that the prepared AuNPs had an average size of 11 ± 2 nm. Analysis of FTIR spectra was used to determine the potential functional groups in the extracts that bring out the reduction process in the synthesis of AuNPs. Furthermore, both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria were used to test the antibacterial efficacy of the green-synthesized AuNPs. The synthesized AuNPs showed highly effective antioxidant and anticancer activity. Also, the synthesized AuNPs showed the excellent catalytic activity for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol into 4-aminophenol in the presence of NaBH4.