Biosynthesis of nanoparticles from bacteria and thallophytes: Recent advances

Nanotechnology is introduced particularly as an exciting and developing technology at the size of 10 m, clearing the obstacles among biology, chemistry, and physics. In particular, it is described as the design, description, production, and utilization of structures, devices, and systems with controlling the dimension at the range of nanometer (Stylios et al. 2005, Shanti et al. 2011, Rana et al. 2020). At the nanoscale, there are two crucial methods: “Top-down,” the manufacturing of nanostructured matters via taking bulk matter and turning it into the favorite shape containing integrated circuit development, and the “Bottom-up” technique, constructing up nanostructures molecule-by-molecule or atom-by-atom viz., nanotubes, and quantum dots (Majumder et al. 2007). Nanotechnology phrase is traced back to the Greek word, meaning “dwarf,” while in scientific and technological domains, the prefix “nano” is 10, viz. 0.000000001 (Shanti et al. 2011). Richard Feynman, an outstanding physicist, proposed the nanotechnology platform upon his lecture titled as “there is plenty of room at the bottom” at California Institute of Technology. He offered a scientific vision on miniaturizing the materials through manipulation and control of their size at nanoscale, well known as “Nanotechnology” (Sahoo et al. 2007). He proposed the technology to construct nano-object, atom-by-atom, and molecule-by-molecule utilizing the toolbox (Ochekpe et al. 2009). Feynman lecture gave birth to some new definitions such as nanotechnology, nanoscale, nano-object, and nano-engineering, instead of phrases like small size, small things, and miniaturization (Feynman 1960). Notwithstanding the popularity of nanotechnology in contemporary years, it cannot be considered as a novel science, given some historical instances such as Lycurgus glass cup in British Museum, seemed to be jade green in natural light and red color when exposing to the bright light, due to the utilization of NPs of silver and gold (Smith 2006b), and carbon in manufacturing the vehicle tires, while the red and yellow colors are seen at sunsets considering the existence of NPs in the atmosphere (Smith 2006a). Some other ancient examples ascribed to nanotechnology can be mentioned: the weapons fabricated by Indian craftsmen and artisans utilizing nanotechnology, the cave paintings attributed to 2000 years ago, famous sword of Tipu Sultan with carbon NPs, and Ajanta paintings. In 1902, Richard Zsigmondy conducted the first seeing and scale measurements of NPs utilizing an ultramicroscope. Norio Taniguchi, the University of Tokyo, was the first to utilize the term “nanotechnology” to explain the capability of engineering materials at the nanoscale (Miyazaki and Islam 2007). In the 1980s, the possibility of imaging the individual atoms or molecules in addition to their manipulation, prompted considerable development in nanotechnology (Cortie 2004). Indeed, the present popularity of nanotechnology owes to the speeches and books of Eric Drexler in 1986 titled as “Engines of creation: the coming era of nanotechnology.” In addition, carbon nanotubes were discovered by Saumio lijima in 1991. Flowingly, the national nanotechnology initiative was introduced by the United States in 2000, all opening the window for the advancement in nanotechnology (Verma et al. 2011a). There is an increasing need to grow clean, nontoxic, and eco-friendly techniques (green chemistry) for the synthesis of NPs. The use of biological organisms in this field is quickly attracting a lot of attention, thanks to its increasing success and simplicity of NPs formation.