A review on the biosynthesis of metallic nanoparticles (gold and silver) using bio-components of microalgae: Formation mechanism and applications

The synthesis of nanoparticles (NP) using algae has been underexploited and even unexplored. In recent times, there are few reports on the synthesis of NP using algae, which are being used as a bio-factory for the synthesis. Moreover, the algae are a renewable source, so that it could be effectively explored in the green synthesis of NP. Hence, this review reports on the biosynthesis of NP especially gold and silver NP using algae. The most widely reported NP from algae are silver and gold than any other metallic NP, which might be due to their enormous biomedical field applications. The NP synthesized by this method is mainly in spherical shape; the reports are revealing the fact that the cell free extracts are highly exploited for the synthesis than the biomass, which is associated with the problem of recovering the particles. Besides, mechanism involving in the reduction and stabilization is well demonstrated to deepen the knowledge towards enhancement possibilities for the synthesis and applications. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.