Biopolymer-based green synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles

Abstract

The use of biopolymers for the synthesis of various nanomaterials is of huge interest to present day nanobiotechnology. A basic, novel, cost effective and green method has been developed for the synthesis of ZnO-NPs (zinc oxide nanoparticles) utilizing carrageenan as a marine biopolymer. This work suggests the use of green method serving carrageenan as a stabilizing agent during sol-gel process before calcination in high temperatures to generate ZnO-NPs. The produced ZnO–NPs were characterized using various tools such as powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and UV–visible (UV– vis) spectroscopy. The ZnO-NPs synthesized at various temperatures displayed spherical structure, its TEM images and particle size distributions exhibited the size of 49 nm. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed the successful synthesis of ZnO-NPs with high purity and crystallinity. The UV-visible spectra showed characteristic absorption peaks of ZnO between 368 and 376 nm and FTIR analysis exhibited Zn-O bands around 402 to 448 cm-1. The biosynthesized ZnO-NPs could offer potential applications in bio-medical field.