Effect of ammonium chloride addition on crystal growth, structural, optical and biological applications of L-glutamic acid crystals

In this present work, the crystals of β and α polymorphs of L-glutamic acid were grown by the slow evaporation method with addion of ammonium chloride. The selective additive ammonium chloride was mixed at proportions 0.01 g, 0.02 g, 0.03 g,…, 0.10 g into the L-glutamic acid aqueous solution to find out the α and β polymorphs of L-glutamic acid. The lower proportion (0.01 g) of ammonium chloride yields β polymorph, whereas higher proportion (0.08 g) of ammonium chloride yields α polymorph of L-glutamic acid that was confirmed by powder XRD studies. UV–Vis–NIR spectral analysis shows a good optical transparency of the grown crystals of α and β polymorphs in visible and infrared regions. The functional groups present in the crystal were identified by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. The antibacterial activities of grown crystals against Gram-negative bacterial strains were carried out using the agar disk diffusion method. The anticancer activity study shows that both polymorphs inhibit the human breast cancer cell line.