Biopolymer capped silver nanoparticles with potential for multifaceted applications.

A sustainable, green and low cost method for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles at room temperature has been developed using guargum as a reducing and stabilizing agent. The synthesized silver nanoparticles (GAg) were characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy, FTIR, EDS, Raman, XRD and TEM. The interaction of the functional groups present in the biopolymer Guargum (G) with the silver nanoparticles (GAg) were responsible for the nanoparticle surface to function as active substrates for Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopic (SERS) detection of cationic and anionic dyes. The catalytic degradation of a copper phthalocyanine based dye- Reactive blue - 21(RB-21), an azo dye- Reactive red 141(RR-141) and a xanthene dye- Rhodamine - 6G(Rh-6G) as well as binary mixtures of the three dyes was evaluated using the synthesized nanoparticles. The catalyst also caused a significant reduction in Total Organic Carbon (TOC) suggesting the formation of smaller degraded products.