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23 Biogeneration of Valuable Nanomaterials from Food and Other Wastes

of food and agricultural wastes for nanomaterials synthesis. The present chapter

throws light on synthesis of nanomaterials using different agriculture and food

wastes [4–6].

23.2

Green Synthesis of Nanomaterials by Using Food

and Agricultural Waste

Hussain et al. [7] reviewed about nanoparticles production by classical methods

which are expensive, use toxic solvents, generate harmful wastes, and produce

imperfect surface structures. These methods pollute the environment and affect

the human health. Besides those methods, green synthesis method can be adopted

for nanomaterial synthesis, which does not use harmful and expensive chemicals

and use natural resources like plant leaves and fruit materials for the synthesis of

nanoparticles [7]. Food and agricultural wastes can be utilized for the generation of

number of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles. This biogenic method of nanoma-

terial synthesis is considered as a better alternative, since this synthesis method is

environmental friendly and follows a green chemistry-based route. Agricultural and

food wastes contain number of important biomolecules like alkaloids, amino acids,

enzymes, phenolics, flavanoids, proteins, polysaccharides, saponins, tannins, and

other valuable phytochemicals. Hence, these wastes can act as bio-reducing agents

for the synthesis of nanomaterials, and the wastes may also find their applications

in the stabilization of nanomaterial synthesis system [8, 9]. Ghosh et al. [9] reviewed

nanoparticle synthesis from the waste by a bottom-up approach. Nanomaterials

produced using the agricultural and food wastes are cost-effective, easily available,

and eco-friendly and utilize the waste to create valuable products. Various metal and

metal oxide nanoparticles synthesized using food and agro-wastes were found to be

interesting for waste utilization and they are shown in the Table 23.1 with suitable

precursor material and type of waste utilized. However, many other important

metal and metal oxide nanoparticles can also be synthesized using agriculture

waste, i.e. grapheme oxide, magnesium oxide, copper oxide, etc. [9].

This green synthesis of nanomaterials is a new emerging domain, but limited

studies were found particularly for nanomaterial synthesis using food and

agro-wastes. As green synthesis method utilizes wastes, this method is economical

and is helpful as it promises to utilize waste for value-added nanoparticle synthesis.

23.3

Synthesis of Bionanoparticles from Food

and Agricultural Waste

Agricultural and food wastes are organic in nature, which could be used for synthesis

of bionanomaterials. Biopolymers like xylan, cellulose, protein, starch, and chitosan

have been applied for the generation of bionanoparticles [24]. Different types of bio-

nanomaterials synthesized from the agriculture and food waste would be discussed

in this section.