Green synthesis and characterisation of Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles from two duckweeds of Malda District
1Sudipta Kumar Sil, *Santanu Gupta and 2Moupriya Nag
1Department of Botany, University of Gour Banga, Malda- 732103 (India) *Department of Botany, Malda College, Malda-732101 (India) 2Department of Biotechnology, University of Engineering and Management, New Town, Kolkata-700122 (India) *Corresponding Author: Email : santanubotanist@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Duckweeds are aquatic angiosperms that proliferate luxuriously in tropical stagnant waters enriched in organics which serve as the sources of nitrogen and phosphorous to these small floating plants. In the district of Malda (W.B.), like other ecologically similar places, duckweeds form floating sheath over water surface. They are potential source of biomass used for green synthesis of nanoparticles like zinc oxide nanoparticles as carried out in this study. The existence of zinc oxide as nanoparticle was primarily understood through UVspectrophotometry where absorption maxima recorded to have been 368 nm and 360 nm in case of Spirodela polyrrhiza (L.) Schleid and Lemna minor L. respectively as used as biomaterial. The shape and dimensions of these nanoparticles synthesized using Lemna minor L. and Spirodela polyrrhiza (L.) Schleid. were investigated by spectrophotometric and microscopic (SEM and TEM) methods.