Green synthesis, characterization and antifungal and photocatalytic activity of Pithecellobium dulce peel–mediated ZnO nanoparticles

By G. Madhumitha, J. Fowsiya, N. Gupta, Ashutosh Kumar, M. Singh. Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, 2019

160 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized by a conventional method using Pithecellobium dulce peel extract. The phytochemicals present in the peel act as stabilizing agents. The ZnO NPs were characterized by UV–vis spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The XRD pattern confirmed the formation of crystals, which exactly matched with JCPDS card no.36–1451. The nondestructive XRD pattern showed a hexagonal crystalline nature, and scanning electron microscopy revealed a spherical shape. Further, the ZnO NPs exhibited excellent photodegradation efficiency with regard to the dye methyleneblue (MB), a major water pollutant released by the textile industry. A kinetic study of photodegradation of MB showed 63% degradation and a rate constant of 0.00812 min−1. The antifungal activity of the ZnO NPs resulted in 37.81% and 63.57% inhibition of the growth of Aspergillus flavus and 40.21% and 43.04% of growth inhibition of Aspergillus niger at 500 and 1000 ppm of ZnO NPs, respectively.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5e439a3a4b739ad7e4af263a3837df25800bd337