**4. Potential applications of biologically derived nanoparticles**

The physiochemical characteristics of metal nanoparticles render them applicable across a genre of multi-disciplinary fields for a variety of uses including catalysis [128]; micro-electronics [129]; solar energy conversion [130] amongst many others [131]. They have also been recognised for their potential in a number of medical applications [132]. However, the use of nanoparticles derived from physical and chemical synthetic routes raises health and toxicity concerns due to the nature of the reaction conditions which may ultimately affect the properties of the derived particles [133].

Biologically derived nanoparticles provide a greener alternative to nanoparticles derived from the aforementioned routes since, the synthesis methods used to derive these particles are clean and non-toxic [9]. As a result, they are suitable for a number of biomedical applications (**Table 1**) including: cancer therapy; drug delivery; tumour detection; genetic disorder diagnosis; tissue repair; cell labelling; antimicrobial development; targeting and immunoassays and yet to be discovered applications [37, 114, 132, 134–136].

With respect to biologically derived AgNPs, their major exploitation exists in the development of antimicrobial agents due to their renowned microbial inhibitory activities and with the current status on antimicrobial drug resistance, these particles are being extensively sought after as possible alternatives to antibiotics [1, 8].


**269**

**Author details**

Jerushka S. Moodley1

and Patrick Govender1

\*

Authors declare no conflict of interest.

Technology, Durban, South Africa

provided the original work is properly cited.

Natal, Private Bag X54001, Durban, South Africa

\*Address all correspondence to: govenderpt@ukzn.ac.za

, Suresh Babu Naidu Krishna<sup>2</sup>

1 Department of Biochemistry, School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu

2 Department of Biomedical and Clinical Technology, Durban University of

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

, Karen Pillay1

*Green Synthesis of Metal Nanoparticles for Antimicrobial Activity*

tially enhance the bioactivities of the produced particles.

In conclusion, it can be established that green synthetic strategies using plant and bacterial based extracts are promising alternatives to produce AgNPs. However, to produce AgNPs with enhanced bioactivities, morphological characteristics such as size and shape need to be finely tuned. Furthermore, the use of extracts with known medical value provides with attractive capping substrates that may poten-

This study was made possible through financial support from the National Research Foundation. The research facilities were provided by the University of

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94348*

**5. Conclusion**

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

KwaZulu-Natal.

#### **Table 1.**

*Selective applications of silver nanoparticles synthesised using plant extracts.*
