Green synthesis of zinc oxide from aqueous fruit extract of Dovyalis abyssinica (Koshem) and application for water purification

Abstract

This article reports the green synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles using an endemic plant called Dovyalis abyssinica, locally known as Koshem, for the degradation of malachite green dye in photocatalytic process. An aqueous extract from the ripe fruits of the plant was incorporated into the sol-gel synthesis process to obtain ZnO NPs with the size of 17 nm. XRD data and UV-Vis absorption at 390 nm confirmed that the synthesis was successful. In addition, the FTIR result showed a characteristic absorption peak at 543 cm^-1 for the presence of Zn-O stretching and additional peaks also appeared from the plant source, suggesting that the natural functionalities are present together on ZnO particles as a capping agent. The ZnO NPs produced were used as a photocatalyst to degrade the organic dye malachite green. The results showed that ZnO nanomaterials synthesized in green removed 98.5% of the dye from the aqueous solution by photo-degradation under visible light. This study contributes to efforts that try to develop efficient techniques for removing organic pollutants from wastewater treatment.