To the best of our knowledge, the use of naturally available agricultural
waste material has not been investigated so far, for such
applications. Banana peels are a classical example of such abundantly
available natural material. India is the largest producer of
bananas and FAO sources estimate that 21.77 million metric tons
of bananas are cultivated annually. Such estimates for the worldwide
production are several folds higher. The peels of banana are
usually discarded. They are mainly composed of natural polysaccharides
[18]. Their medicinal value has been explored [19] and
they have also been used as substrates for the production of fungal
biomass [20]. Another application includes their use in the adsorption
of heavymetals from water [21]. In this study, we report a novel
‘green’ biological route for the synthesis of nanoparticles and also
demonstrate their assembly into microcubes and microwires (due
to the coffee ring phenomenon) by using the banana peel extract
(BPE) powder as a reducingmaterial. The structures have been char