Nanoparticle are an ultra – microscopic particle that has at least one dimension less than 100 nm. Research into nanoparticle is currently gaining an immense interest due to its wide variety of potential applications in biomedical, optical, and electronic fields. Different chemical and physical methods have been employed for preparation of nanoparticle but there is a need for “green chemistry”. Green synthesis of nanoparticles provide cost effective, time saving, environmentally sound and safer method for nanoparticle synthesis. To this end, silver nanoparticles have been prepared by using aqueous solution of the selected medicinal plants viz. Acorus calamus (Bojo), Canna indica(Sarbada phool), Centella asiatica(Godtapra), Colocasia esculenta (Karkalo), Ficus religiosa (peepal), Juglans regia (Walnut), Melia azedarach (Bakaino), Rhodendron lepidoteum( Sunpati), and Urtica dioica(Sissno). The formation of AgNPs was first screened by measuring the surface plasmon resonance peak in the range of 380-440 nm using UV-vis spectroscopy. After preliminary analysis, further analysis was done using FTIR. The nanoparticles were then used for antimicrobial assessment using standard pathogenic strains: Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae with Streptomycin antibiotic as standard. Among the tested nanoparticles, those produced from Acorus calamus, Canna indica, Colocasia esculenta, Ficus religiosa, Juglans regia and Melia azedarach showed the broadest antimicrobial activity inhibiting all the tested microbes. Similarly, the aqueous extracts of these plants did not show any antimicrobial activity indicating that antimicrobial activity was solely due to the nanoparticles produced. Hence, the synthesis of nanoparticles using these plants presents a promising aspect for generation of antimicrobial complexes.
