Tithonia diversifolia pectin – reduced graphene oxide and its cytotoxic activity

•Graphene oxide was reduced by pectin from Tithonia diversifolia.•The reduction of the graphene oxide was confirmed by various characterization methods.•Cytotoxicity of GO and TDP-rGO to RD and LU-1 cells was evaluated

Reduced graphene oxide was one-pot synthesized from graphene oxide using pectin from Tithonia diversifolia as a reducing and stabilizing agent. The success of the process was confirmed by UV–vis, FT-IR, XRD spectroscopy. The TEM and AFM images showed the structure of few-layer graphene nanosheets with the dimension of hundreds nm and the thickness about 2.5 nm. The cytotoxic tests revealed that the reduction process of graphene oxide using pectin led to a lower cytotoxicity.