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© 2016 Shabnam et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

The unique potential of chloroplasts/thylakoids to harness light energy to transport electrons from H2O to various entities was exploited for reduction of Ag+ to generate nanoparticles (NPs). Spinach thylakoids/chloroplasts turned AgNO3 solutions brown in light, but not in dark. Besides showing Ag-NPs specific surface plasmon resonance band, these brown solutions showed presence of 5–30 nm crystalline NPs composed of Ag. Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) analysis revealed that Ag-NPs were biphasic composed of face-centered cubic Ag0 and cubic Ag2O. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) data further corroborated the presence of Ag2O in Ag-NPs. Limited formation of Ag-NPs in dark and increased generation of Ag0/Ag2O–NPs with increase in light intensity (photon flux density) by thylakoids/chloroplasts, established the role of light-harvesting photosynthetic machinery in generation of Ag0/Ag2O-NPs. Potential of thylakoids/chloroplasts to generate Ag-NPs from Ag+ on exposure to red and blue wavelength regions of visible light of electromagnetic spectrum, further confirmed the involvement of photosynthetic electron transport in reduction of Ag+ and generation of Ag-NPs. While light energy mediated photosynthetic electron transport donates energized electrons extracted from H2O to Ag+ to form Ag0-NPs, O2 released as a by-product during photolysis of H2O oxidizes Ag0 to form Ag2O-NPs. Our findings furnish a novel, simple, economic and green method that can be exploited for commercial production of Ag0/Ag2O-NPs.

Details

Title
Light Mediated Generation of Silver Nanoparticles by Spinach Thylakoids/Chloroplasts
Author
Shabnam, Nisha; Sharmila, P; Kim, Hyunook; Pardha-Saradhi, P
First page
e0167937
Section
Research Article
Publication year
2016
Publication date
Dec 2016
Publisher
Public Library of Science
e-ISSN
19326203
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
1847562477
Copyright
© 2016 Shabnam et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.