Nanotechnology is a emerging field of applied sciences where the functional units are in the magnitude of one part of a billion volume and appear to be elite operating than conventional micro units. In-organics and organic materials have been exploited to act as nanomaterials so far and silver nanoparticles(Ag-NPs) are one of the most potent materials among them for nano-composite fabrications.However scientists are hindered to generate Ag-NP units with expected level of functionality because they frequently suffer from limitations of aggregation of Ag-NPs with conventional  solvent medium that interferes with activities of final product and it made them to search for better performing medium. Finally a breakthrough solution to the problem came out from the Malaysian researchers when they revealed the fabrication of Ag-NPs by laser ablation of silver plate in the presence of castor oil.

Researchers claimed that the amphiphilic nature of the castor oil makes it to interact with silver element in an electrostatically regulated way which ultimately generates nanoparticles with expected characteristics.A quantitative analysis by normal distribution showed castor oil based nanoparticles are uniform in their size to a maximum extent and prove to be stable.Final material assessment was studied by advanced spectroscopic and electron microscopic techniques with definite controls.

Castor oil is an affordable material economically on a global scale and exploiting it for such type of advanced studies would shatter the barriers of expensiveness normally witnessed in technological development but it would have been better to realize when experimental confirmation had been made on activities of castor oil based Ag-NPs.

For reference: Zamiri et al, International Journal of Nanomedicine 2011:6 565–568