Biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles mediated by Curcuma longa extract: Evaluation of its catalytic activity for the degradation of environmental pollutants and study of anti-lung adenocarcinoma effects

It is essential to recognize efficient heterogeneous catalysts for environmental remediation that can eliminate organic contaminants or transform them into beneficial byproducts. Herein, we have designed and developed a gold nanoparticle based green nanocomposite material templated over the Curcuma longa extract. The Au NPs/C. longa nanomaterial was thoroughly characterized by FT-IR and UV–Vis spectroscopy followed by FE-SEM, EDX, TEM and XRD analysis. Subsequently, towards the wastewater treatment, it demonstrated excellent potential in the reduction of water contaminant toxic organic dyes like methylene blue (MB), methyl orange (MO), and 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) following excellent kinetics, as monitored by UV–Vis spectrophotometer. The reaction followed a pseudo-first order kinetics. The robustness of the nanocatalyst was justified by reusability studies, and hot filtration test and the catalytic activity did not substantially decline over the course of seven cycles. Towards the assessment of biological activity of Au NPs/C. longa nanocomposite antioxidant capacity was evaluated first using the DPPH radical scavenging method. Further, the study was extended in the investigation of anti-lung cancer properties against a number of standard lung cancer cell lines, viz., NCI-H661, NCI-H1975, NCI-H1573, and NCI-H1563 following MTT colorimetric in vitro studies. Curcuma longa-modified Au NPs are thought to have potential biological activities because of their exceptional capacity to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS).