application of red ginseng for synthesis of palladium nanoparticles as catalyst for c-c coupling reactions

There has been a growing interest in the design of environmentally affable and biocompatible nanoparticles among scientists to find novel and safe biomaterials. the accelerated expansion of the studies in nanotechnology has resulted in an extensive set of nanoparticles that differ in size, shape, charge, capping layer, and stability. however, the major challenge for scientists is the creation of novel nanoparticles without the use of toxic chemicals to eliminate the risks in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. hence, harmless solvents, nontoxic reducing agents, and renewable materials are key in the production of environmentally affable and biocompatible nanoparticles (jiménez perez et al. 2017).synthesis of nanoparticle using plants extracts by green synthesis technology is biologically safe, eco-friendly and cost-effective. here, we report the use of natural and herbal red ginseng medicinal roots for the synthesis of palladium nanoparticles. the plant belongs to the araliaceae family, and is well known for its pharmacologic importance in humans (kiefer and pantuso 2003). the use of the herbal medicinal plant for nanoparticle synthesis avoids the contamination of some toxic chemicals and solvents in the nanoparticles, and hazardous by-products, and thus is an additional advantage for the production, and for the pharmaceutical and biomedical applications, of nanoparticles (kim et al. 2014). the main constituents of red ginseng are ginsenosides or polysaccharides, amino acids, flavones, peptide glycans, acetylenic compounds, and pyran derivatives. the ginsenosides have the ability to improve immunity, insulin sensitivity, and impaired memory, and have anti-aging and anti-cancer components, along with anti-stress and antioxidant activity as well (singh et al. 2015).in order to expand the use of plants as the support for palladium nanoparticles, we decided to introduce red ginseng as a suitable and naturally degradable support for stabilization of palladium nanoparticles. this composite was used as the catalyst for mizoroki-heck c-c coupling reaction (fig. 1). the prepared pd nanoparticles are characterized using ultraviolet-visible (uv-vis) spectroscopy, powder x-ray diffraction (xrd), transmission electron microscopy (tem), energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (edx), and fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (ft-ir)