Nerium oleander leaves extract mediated synthesis of gold nanoparticles and its antioxidant activity

•Bio-syntheses of gold nanoparticles using Nerium oleander leaf extract.•Gold nanoparticles was found to be Spherical and well dispersed with small size of 10 nm.•The biogenic gold nanoparticles have excellent antioxidant activity.

In the present work we describe the reduction of gold ions into gold nanoparticles using Nerium oleander leaf extract in the one step green synthetic method. The formation of gold nanoparticles was confirmed by UV–vis spectroscopic analysis. The gold nanoparticles were characterized by HRTEM, SEM and were found to be small size (2–10 nm), almost spherical in shape and highly dispersed without any aggregation. The XRD confirmed crystal structure of gold nanoparticles. EDX detector was used to determine the elemental composition of material. The types of organic compounds present in the plant leaves were detected by FT-IR spectral analysis. The gold nanoparticles synthesized by this method were pure and showed good antioxidant activity. The results showed that the N. oleander leaf extract is very active for reduction of gold nanoparticles.