Green Synthesis of Silica and Silicon Nanoparticles and Their Biomedical and Catalytic Applications
Nasrin Shafiei, Mahmoud Nasrollahzadeh, Siavash Iravani
Abstract
Silica and silicon nanomaterials have diverse applications in the field of drug/gene delivery, lightweight aggregates, regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, cancer diagnosis/therapy, catalytic applications, and energy storage. There is an increasing demand for eco-friendly synthesis of silica and silicon nanomaterials with enough cost-effectiveness, safety, reliability, simplicity, scalability, and controllable particle size distribution features. These materials can be effectively obtained from various agrarian sustainable bio-resources, including rice husk ash, sugar-cane, coffee husk, wheat husk and corn cob ash. Using green and sustainable techniques can cause to eliminate or reduce laborious/complicated procedures and reduce the environmental contaminants to obtain advanced materials for high-tech applications. In this review, recent advancements pertaining to the catalytic and biomedical applications of silica and silicon nanoparticles are highlighted, as well as their greener synthetic methods.