Catalytic degradation of methylene blue as a model dye using silver nanoparticles

Abstract

For processing of dyes the textile industries uses large amount of water which leads to increase the undesirable toxicity into the water bodies. This toxicity in water bodies is dangerous to humans; decrease the activities of aquatic plants. To get rid of this toxicity there is an advanced oxidation process which is helpful in degrading a wide range of dyes in water systems. For removal of dye toxicity, the photo catalytic degradation activity is a practical method of interest. In this work, AgNPs were synthesized by a chemical reduction method and biogenic synthesis. AgNPs bear the desired physicochemical properties in terms of structural, optical, thermal and photo catalytic properties. Now a days, plant mediated synthesis of nanoparticles has great interest and achievement due to its various properties like it is eco-friendly, cheap, non-toxic and has low time consuming properties. In this study, the leaf and fruit extract of Aegle Marmelos (bael) were used for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles for removal of toxicity of dyes and also by chemical methods. The aqueous leaf and fruit extract was put into the silver nitrate solution results in the change of colour form yellow to reddish brown which indicates that there is a reduction of silver ions in silver nitrate solution. Thus various forms of synthesized AgNPs were characterized by UV-Vis spectrophotometer and FTIR spectrum, which was used to identify the functional group responsible for the reducing and capping of synthesized AgNPs. AgNPs have catalytic redox properties for dyes. The photo catalytic activity of the various forms of synthesized AgNPs was observed by degradation of methylene blue (a toxic dye) under sunlight. Synthesized silver nanoparticles formed by plant extract were effectively helped in degrading the MB dye nearly 84.4% at 6 hrs of exposure time under sunlight.