Fabrication and Characterization of Nickel Nanoparticles using Calotropis gigantea for Antimalarial Applications

Malaria diagnosis using sophisticated methods is highly expensive and time-consuming. The development of sensitive, selective, robust, accurate, fast and low-cost clinical diagnosis techniques has been a major focus of researchers in recent years. In this work, nickel nanoparticles have been synthesized successfully using Calotropis gigantea leaf extract, by Co-precipitation method and then characterized by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis.) spectroscopic techniques. FT-IR spectra showed a sharp peak at 699 cm -1 and a broad peak ranging from 2500 - 3500 cm-1 ensuring the construction of nickel nanoparticles. X-ray Diffraction pattern revealed a face-centered cubic structure. The SEM image has shown the spherical structure with a rough area. The results obtained were satisfactory in terms of antimalarial applications of the nickel nanoparticles.