Effects of extraction solvents on photoluminescent properties of eysenhardtia polystachia and their potential usage as biomarker

•Dyes and fuctionalized nanomaterials from Eysenhardtia polystachya plant were obtained.•The effects of four extraction solvents on photoluminescence properties were studied.•Methanol and ethanol had the best performance as extraction solvents.•More than one substance from Eysenhardtia polystachya extracts is a fluorophore.•Nanomaterials had competitive photoluminescense intensity compared with Rhodamine.

Currently, nanomaterials had been used for several applications; one of them is as bio-markers. These nanomaterials contain fluorescent compounds as effective indicators for imaging and other applications in Biotechnology. In previous studies, we proposed a functionalized nanomaterial-based biomarker from silica and Eysenhardtia Polystachia, a medicinal tree known in Mexico as “palo azul” (Kidneywood). Our previous results showed the feasibility of the nanomaterial obtained as bio-marker. In this article, our purpose is to evaluate the effects of extraction solvents on fluorescence of that biomarker. The photoluminescence (PL) effect was evaluated at different pH (4, 7.4 and 8); four extraction solvents, ethanol, methanol, methanol-ethanol and methanol-ethanol-water were evaluated. A molecular dynamics simulation was performed to recognize molecular interaction between the compounds of the extracts with solvent molecules and to investigate the solvent molecules effect on photoluminescence spectra. The results were also compared with rhodamine 6G and we found that, at physiological pH (7.4), the fluorescent-coated silica nanoparticles obtained were also stable. We found that extraction solvents could be used for obtaining different nanomaterials for specific applications, and also found the best extraction solvent for obtaining EP nanomaterials for health care applications, specifically for imaging techniques.

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