Kinetics of fresh and fermented palm wine (Raphia hookeri) biosynthesized silver nanoparticles and their antibacterial activities

ABSTRACT

Green technologies for synthesis of nanoparticles are always preferred and speedily gaining attention of many researchers. In this work, a simple, convenient, and economical method of synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) was employed by using palm wine. Locally available plant sap or palm wine (Raphia hookeri) used in this work contain relatively high amount of sucrose, glucose, and acetic acid. Fresh and fermented palm wine was selected for AgNP synthesis. The sap was mixed with AgNO₃ in the ratio of 1:10, respectively, and magnetically stirred. The UV–Visible results on the fresh palm wine displayed surface plasmon bands (SPBs) after one hour of the reaction at 400 nm and remained stable even after three hours of reaction. In the case of fermented palm wine, SPBs became prominent after two weeks at a maximum wavelength of 420 nm. The nanoparticle growth mechanism appeared to be diffusion-controlled Ostwald ripening process with regards to the fermented palm wine due to the red shift associated with the SPBs. The NPs showed excellent antibacterial properties even at low concentration of 20 µg/mL of the samples.

KEYWORDS:

• Palm wine
• silver nanoparticles
• diffusion-controlled
• Ostwald ripening
• antibacterial

Acknowledgment

The authors wish to express their deep appreciation to the management of Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun, Delta state, Nigeria, led by Professor Akii Ibhadode for his research-oriented leadership. The technologists of the Department of Chemistry are also greatly acknowledged for their dedicated service throughout the progress of this work, especially Mr Hamza Bawa, for the strenuous antimicrobial analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.