Harvesting Au Nanoparticles from Carthamus tinctorius Flower Extract and Evaluation of Their Antimicrobial Activity

In this paper, we report the synthesis of highly dispersed gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) using Dried flower extract of Carthamus tinctorius as the reducing agent. After exposing the gold ions to flowers extract, rapid reduction of gold ions is observed leading to the formation of AuNPs in solution. UV-VIS spectrum of the aqueous medium containing AuNPs obtained after 25 min (at 40 °C) and after 10 hrs (at room temperature) of reaction, showed absorption peaks at around 414 and 410 nm respectively. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrograph analysis of the AuNPs indicated that they were well-dispersed This green synthetic method is proved to be simple, eco-friendly and there is no need of using toxic chemicals. AuNPs show the antibacterial activity against the S aureus (KCTC 1916), E. coli (KCTC 2441), B. Substilis (lab culture) and C. albicans (lab culture) to the best of our knowledge. This is the first report on synthesis of gold nanoparticles using Carthamus tinctorius flowers extract.