article · Nano TransMed
Plant extracts offer an eco-friendly and economical route for synthesising nanoparticles. Phytochemicals, including flavonoids, phenolics, and alkaloids, act as natural agents that reduce metal ions and stabilise the resulting particles. These green nanoparticles demonstrate significant versatility across multiple fields. In healthcare, gold nanoparticles show anticancer properties by inducing apoptosis and can serve in theranostic platforms that combine diagnosis and treatment. In environmental management, iron and silver nanoparticles achieve over 90 percent efficiency in degrading pollutants and capturing heavy metals. In agriculture, phytosynthesised nanofertilisers improve crop yields by up to 30 percent while lowering chemical fertiliser use. However, scaling up manufacturing, maintaining batch consistency, and fully understanding molecular interactions remain critical hurdles. Transitioning these materials from laboratory settings to practical applications requires standardised protocols, optimised plant metabolite mixtures, and thorough in vivo testing.
Conventional nanoparticle production often relies on hazardous chemicals and energy-intensive processes. Using plant extracts provides a sustainable alternative that creates effective materials for medical therapies, environmental remediation, and farming. Understanding the factors governing this green synthesis helps researchers develop non-toxic, bio-based tools to tackle pollution, improve food security, and deliver targeted cancer treatments without generating harmful chemical waste.
This research outlines applications for biotechnology firms, agricultural chemical producers, and environmental remediation services. The technology appears to be at an early stage of development, primarily demonstrated in laboratory experiments. Bridging the gap to commercial use will require solving technical bottlenecks related to industrial scale-up, batch-to-batch reproducibility, synthesis standardisation, and extensive in vivo safety validations.
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This review explores the phytosynthesis of nanoparticles (NPs) using plant extracts, emphasizing mechanistic insights, recent advancements, and their diverse applications. The green and cost-effective nature of phytosynthesis makes it an attractive alternative to conventional nanoparticle synthesis, with phytochemicals such as flavonoids, phenolics, and alkaloids facilitating metal ion reduction and stabilization. The review highlights key medical applications, including the anticancer potential of gold nanoparticles, which have demonstrated apoptosis induction in cancer cells, and their use in theranostic structures for simultaneous diagnosis and treatment. In environmental science, phytosynthesized iron and silver nanoparticles have shown over 90 % efficiency in heavy metal adsorption and pollutant degradation, contributing to sustainable remediation strategies. In agriculture, nanofertilizers synthesized via phytosynthesis have enhanced crop yields by up to 30 % while reducing chemical fertilizer dependence. Despite these advancements, obstacles persist in scaling up production, ensuring batch-to-batch reproducibility, and fully elucidating nanoparticle interactions at the molecular level. Standardizing synthesis protocols, optimizing plant metabolite compositions, and conducting extensive in vivo studies will be crucial in translating laboratory findings into real-world applications. By resolving these difficulties through interdisciplinary collaborations, phytosynthesized nanoparticles can revolutionize nanomedicine, agriculture, and environmental sustainability, paving the way for the next generation of eco-friendly technological innovations. • The biosynthesis of nanoparticles using plant extracts is largely attributed to the diverse array of bioactive compounds present in these extracts. • The biosynthesis of nanoparticles using plant extracts is a complex process influenced by several environmental and chemical parameters. • Temperature plays a vital role in the biosynthesis of nanoparticles, influencing both the reaction kinetics and the properties of the resulting nanoparticles.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.ntm.2025.100080
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