Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Abbreviations: NPs, nanoparticles; NSMs, nanostructured materials; AgNPs/SNPs, silver nanoparticles; UV-vis, ultraviolet visible spectroscopy; SEM, scanning electron microscopy; DLS, dynamic light scattering; FTIR, furior transform infrared Introduction Nanoparticles (NPs) and nanostructured materials (NSMs) represent an active area of research with full expansion in many applications such as engineering, electronics, pharmaceuticals etc. NPs and NSMs have gained prominence in technological advancements due to their marvellous physicochemical characteristics such as melting point, wettability, electrical and thermal conductivity, catalytic activity, great adsorption capacity with ligands, stability in biological solution, light absorption and scattering resulting in enhanced performance over their bulk counterparts. 1,2 But the principle of nanotechnology and it applications with pharmacology and medicine are different and they concern with NMs of diameter in the range of 1 to 100nm. In terms of pharmacology NPs and NSMs are defined as particulate dispersions or solid particles drug carrier and have the property to entrap, encapsulate or attach or insert the drug molecules into a nanoparticle matrix or insert the drug molecules in the core of nanoparticles. 3,4 Recently, synthesis of different metallic nanomaterials such as copper, zinc, titanium, magnesium, gold, alginate and silver mediated by biological agents such as bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, algae, extracts from plant and animal materials etc. have been used for eco friendly and green technology. 5,6 Cuscuta reflexa Roxb. Belongs to family Cuscutaceae a division of Convolvulaceae commonly known as Dodder or Akash bel is a parasitic climber plant without leaves has been used as traditional medicine in Ayurveda for treatment of eye and heart and other diseases for a long time. 7,8 It has also been reported C. reflexa contains different types of phytochemicals such as, cuscutin, amarbelin, betasterol, stigmasterol, kaempferol, dulcitol, myricetin, qurecetin, coumarin and oleanolic acid which are associated with antispasmodic, heamodynamic, bradycardia, antisteroidogenic, antihypertensive, antiviral and anticonvulsant activities. 9,10 The aim of present study dealt with the synthesis of silver nanoparticles using aqueous extract of C. reflexa and their characterization. Materials and methods Collection of plant material and preparation of extract Fresh stems of C. reflexa were collected and brought to Department of Zoology, Ranchi University, Ranchi. Fresh stems of C. reflexa was washed by distilled water and then by absolute ethyl alcohol (99.8%) to avoid microbial contamination. The stems were dried in shade under room temperature, powdered and sieved. 50g of the fine powder was subjected to extractraction chamber of Soxhlet and 300mL distilled water was taken in boiling flask as extraction solvent for aqueous extraction. The extract obtained was filtered, concentrated and dried in rotary flask evaporator maintained at 45ºC for proper dehydration and the dried extracts were stored in air tight containers at room temperature for further studies. 11 Synthesis of nanoparticles The synthesis of silver nanoparticles was done with slight modification of previous method of Dandapat et al. 12 Synthesis of nanoparticles were done by mixed 3mL (41mg/mL) of C. reflexa aqueous extract and 197mL of 0.1M silver nitrate (169.87g/mol) solution (i.e., 3.35g AgNO 3 /197mL of distilled water) and incubated by using hot plate at 80ºC and continuous stirring using magnetic stirrer bar, until the light yellow colour of the solution was changed to dark brown. Then the solution was cooled to room temperature and centrifuged at 15000rpm for 10 minutes. The supernatant was discarded and the pellet was washed with distilled water and was dried in the incubator at room temperature for characterization. Characterization of nanoparticles Characterization of synthesized silver nanoparticles were done by UV-vis spectroscopy, SEM photography, DLS analysis and FTIR analysis. UV-Visible spectra analysis was done by using Parkin Elmer Lambda-25 UV-Visible spectrophotometer. SEM was done J Anal Pharm Res. 2019;8(2):80‒83. 80 ©2019 Ranjan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Synthesis and characterization of Cuscuta reflexa (Roxb.) aqueous extract mediated silver nanoparticles Volume 8 Issue 2 - 2019 Rakesh Ranjan, 1 Sukumar Dandapat, 1 Manoj Kumar, 1,2 Manoranjan Prasad Sinha 1 1 Department of Zoology, Ranchi University, India 2 Department of Zoology, St. Xavier’s College, India Correspondence: Rakesh Ranjan, Department of Zoology, Ranchi University, Ranchi-834008, Jharkhand, India, Email Received: February 26, 2019 | Published: April 25, 2019 Abstract C. reflexa is a parasitic medicinal plant has been used for ailment of different diseases. Aqueous extract of C. reflexa has been used for the synthesis of SNPs .In present work synthesis and characterization of SNPs mediated by C. reflexa aqueous extract has been done. The synthesized SNPs showed SRP at 442.94nm. SEM image analysis provided the spherical shape of the SNPs. DLS analysis provided the synthesized SNPs were 169.10nm in diameter with -23mV zeta potential. FTIR spectroscopy provided the confirmation about synthesis of SNPs by representing various transmission peaks 3062.96cm -1 represented to O-H stretch for alcohol and phenol, 2735.06cm -1 , 2395.59cm -1 , 2063.83cm -1 represented to N-H stretches for primary and secondary amines, 825.53cm -1 for C-H stretch represented to vinyl group. Thus, C. reflexa extract can be used for synthesis of metallic nanoparticles for pharmacological studies. Keywords: nanoparticles, characterization, shape, number Journal of Analytical & Pharmaceutical Research Research Article Open Access