New Insights on the Green Synthesis of Metallic Nanoparticles Using Plant and Waste Biomaterials: Current Knowledge, Their Agricultural and Environmental Applications

Nanotechnology is a rapidly growing scientific field and has attracted a great interest over the last few years because of its abundant applications. Green nanotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that has emerged as a rapidly developing research area, serving as an important technique that emphasize on making the procedure which are clean, non-hazardous, and especially environmentally friendly, in contrast with chemical and physical methods currently employed for nanosynthesis. The biogenic routes could be termed green as these do not involve the use of highly toxic chemicals or elevated energy inputs during the synthesis. Differences in the bio-reducing agents employed for nanosynthesis can lead to the production of nanoparticles (NPs) having distinct shapes, sizes, and bioactivity. The exquitiveness of the green fabricated NPs have capacitated their potential applications in various sectors such as biomedicine, pharmacology, food science, agriculture, and environmental engineering. The present review summarizes current knowledge on various biogenic synthesis methods, relying on plants, waste biomass, and biopolymers and their reducing and stabilizing agents to fabricate nanomaterials. The main emphasis has been given on the current status and future challenges related to the wide-scale fabrication of nanoparticles for environmental remediation, pathogenicity, and agricultural applications.