Methylene Blue Dye Degradation using Mycosynthesized, Silver Metal Nanoparticles

Growth and development of biologically synthesized metal nano particles have attracted significant attention in field of nanotechnology due to their potential use for human benefits. A natural, ecofriendly and green chemistry solution incorporating mycology, biotechnology and nanotechnology is the fungal synthesis of noble metal nanoparticles such as silver nanoparticles. There are several methods including physical, chemical and biological methods that can be used for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles. The aim of this research is to implement the green production of silver nanoparticles, i.e., the biological method using penicillium rubensaqueous fungal extract. The aqueous fungal extract was added to silver nitrate solution where the color of the silver nitrate reaction medium was changed from Pale yellow to brown which indicates reduction of silver ions to silver nanoparticles.Synthesized silver nanoparticles are thus characterized by UV-Visible spectroscopy, which disclose a peak of 400-420 nm. The Fourier transform infrared spectrum was studied in order to distinguish the effective functional molecules responsible for the reduction and stabilization of fungal synthesized silver nanoparticles. Changes in parameters such as pH, temperature and silver nitrate solution concentration were used to optimize the output of silver nanoparticles and to assess absorption in UV-Visible spectrophotometer. It is therefore concluded that the biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using extracellular fungal filtrate was simple, eco-friendly and robust. Effective degradation of Methylene blue dye in 90 minutes of exposure time was observed, providing 97 percent efficiency.