Green Synthesis of BaCrO₄ Nanoparticles Using Glycyrrhiza Glabra Extract

The 'greener' environmentally friendly processes in chemistry and chemical technology are becoming increasingly popular and are much needed as a result of worldwide problems associated with environmental contamination.  The biosynthesis of nanoparticles has been proposed as a cost effective and environmental friendly alternative to chemical and physical methods. Plant mediated synthesis of nanoparticles is a green chemistry approach that interconnects nanotechnology and plant biotechnology. The techniques for obtaining nanoparticles using naturally occurring reagents such as plant extracts could be considered attractive for nanotechnology. Plant parts such as leaf, root, latex, seed, and stem are being used for nanoparticle synthesis. Overall, biological materials provide an environmentally friendly or greener chemical method to produce invaluable materials because the biomaterial based routes eliminate the need to use harsh or toxic chemicals. Barium chromate is a naturally occurring chromate analogue of barite which is widely used as a model system for morphosynthesis and kinetics crystallization studies as they crystallize only in a single modification. Barium chromate has been extensively studied attributing to their unique properties and potential applications such as oxidation agent, catalyst for enhancing vapor-phase oxidation reaction and excellent photo-physical properties. In the present study, we have reported the green synthesis and characterization of barium chromate nanoparticles using Glycyrrhiza glabra extract as a natural surfactant, which -to the best of our knowledge- is the first report. The formed BaCrO₄ NPs were characterized by Ultraviolet-Visible (UV–Vis), Fourier-transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis.