Authors Zubia Anwer, Abdul Rauf Jamali, Waseem Khan, Jahanzeb Bhatti, Faheem Akhter & Madhia Batool
The synthesis of metal oxide nanoparticles has gained much attention due to its wide range of applications in the field of industrial, chemical, and biological applications. These metallic nanoparticles have been developed for azo-dye removal, but they are limited for ecofriendly and cost-effective processes. The main objective of this study is to focus on the synthesis of Fe2O3-nanoparticles by green route followed by its application in the dye removal process from wastewater. In this approach, the active iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe2O3-NPs) were produced successfully using Camellia sinensis and Aloe barbadensis leaf extract. The prepared nanoparticles were characterized using SEM, XRD, FTIR, and UVVis spectroscopy, As per results, the NPs effectively degraded both the azo-dyes from the aqueous solution with 7080% removal efficiency in 4045 min under optimum conditions. Moreover, the color change in the solution indicated the formation of Fe2O3-NPs. The absorption peak was observed at 275 nm and 270 nm for Aloe barbadensis leaf extract and Camellia sinensis extract, respectively. The FTIR peak at 553.63 cm?1 indicates the presence of Fe2O3 NPs along with other peaks at 2853.3 cm?1 for OH stretching in carboxylic acid; at 3404 cm?1 due to the OH group present in the extract, broad peak of 3406 cm?1 shows OH group of carbohydrates and phenols along with a peak at 2891 cm?1 for asymmetrical and symmetrical C-H stretching. The results of XRD and SEM indicate the homogeneity, shape, and size of NPs, which were spherical and cubic. The size of the particles ranged between 80 and 100 nm for both types of NPs prepared using the extracts. The Langmuir and Elovich isotherms were used to analyze adsorption behavior. The pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic approaches were used and found satisfactory for both approaches.
