Application of electron beam irradiation for selenium nanoparticles production using gum Arabic as stabilizer

In this work, selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) stabilized by gum arabic (GA), a highly water soluble natural polysaccharides, were succesfully synthesized by irradiation using electron beam accelerator. The obtained gum arabic coated nanoparticles (SeNPs/GA) were characterized by various analytical techniques including UV–Vis, Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX), X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The stability of SeNPs/GA over time at two different storage conditions was also determined by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS). The SeNPs/GA powder was also prepared by freeze drying. Results showed that the SeNPs/GA were spherical with an average size of 27.3 ± 4.8 nm and were crystalline with hexagonal structure. Furthermore, the resultant SeNPs/GA solution was fairly stable up to 6 months when storing at 5 °C.The SeNPs/GA powder was of high purity containing only Se and GA components. These results indicated that SeNPs/GA synthesized by electron beam irradiation could be potential selenium source for various applications.