Recently, plant-mediated route or green approach for preparing metal and metal oxide nanoparticles has received enormous attention due to the ease of preparation and environmental friendliness when compared to physical and chemical methods. Plants contain phytochemicals which have been proposed as bio-reductants and capping agents for forming metal nanoparticles. Therefore, this study was aimed to prepare magnesium oxide nanoparticles (MgONPs) using aqueous extract of Manihot esculenta leaf. The leaf extract was first analyzed in a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) to examine the phytochemicals present. Then, the MgONPs formed were evaluated using UV-Visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, to confirm the formation of MgONPs and to determine the morphology, elemental composition, shape and size, phase composition and nature of bonds present in the sample. Results revealed the formation of monodisperse, hexagonal shaped MgONPs of average size 36.7 nm having potentials for application in catalysis and as antimicrobial agent. Hence the process reported herein could be optimized for large-scale preparation of MgONPs.

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