Green chemistry plays a significant role in protecting and improving the global environment. Green chemistry is a process in which a reducing agent usually a chemical is replaced by an extract of a natural product such as stems, leaves, fruits and its peels etc., of plants for the synthesis of nanoparticles. The metal and metal oxide nanoparticles produced from a plant extract are usually stable for a period of time. The present research work focuses on the synthesis of iron oxide [Fe2O3] nanoparticles using Cissus Quadrangularis commonly known as veldt grape (pirandai in Tamil) plant extract by precipitation method.
The structural, surface morphological and optical properties of the synthesized Fe2O3 nanoparticles were studied by XRD, SEM and UV-Vis spectroscopy. Further the antibacterial activity of the prepared Fe2O3 nanoparticles was studied against gram - negative bacteria (Salmonella and Escherichia coli) and gram - positive bacteria (Bacillus subtili and Staphylococcus aureus) by disc diffusion method.
X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that the prepared nanoparticles have hexagonal wurtzite structure with preferential orientation along (1 0 4) plane. The crystalline size of the synthesized Fe2O3 nanoparticles is 12.324 nm. SEM analysis shows that iron oxide nanoparticles have pebble shape. EDX result confirms the presence of Fe and O in the prepared Fe2O3 nanoparticle samples. The band gap value of biosynthesized Fe2O3 nanoparticles is 2.57eV. Antibacterial studies reveal that the ferric oxide nanoparticles display significant inhibition activities against all tested pathogens.