The need for eco-friendly and
cost effective
methods for
nanoparticles synthesis is developing interest in
biological approaches which are free from the use of toxic
chemicals as byproducts. This study aimed to biosynthesize and optimize the size of
gold nanoparticles which produced by biotechnological
method using
Penicillium crustosum isolated from
soil. Initially,
Penicillium crustosum was grown in fluid czapek dox broth on shaker at 28 ºC and 200 rpm for ten days and then the supernatant was
separated from the mycelia to convert AuCl4
solution into
gold nanoparticles. The synthesized
nanoparticles in the optimum conditions were formed with fairly well-defined dimensions and good monodispersity. The characterizations were done by using different
methods (UV-Visible
Spectroscopy, Fluorescence, FT-IR, AFM (
Atomic Force Microscopy) and DLS (
Dynamic Light Scattering). The bioconversion was optimized by Box-Behnken
experimental design. The results show that the effective factors in this process were concentration of AuCl4,
pH of medium and
temperature of shaker
incubator. The R² value was calculated to be 0.9999 indicating the accuracy and
ability of the
polynomial model. It can be concluded that the use of
multivariate analysis facilitated to find out the optimum conditions for the
biosynthesis of
gold nanoparticles induced by
Penicillium crustosum in a
time and
cost effective process. The current approach suggested that rapid synthesis of
gold nanoparticles would be suitable for developing a
biological process for mass scale
production of formulations.