Abstract
The growing problems of the toxicity of methylene blue dye have increased significantly in the last few years, leading to many health problems. Many purification techniques have been proposed to treat the dye before draining into the rivers. Zinc sulfide nanoparticles (ZnS) became effective in treating the released dye. This research focuses on using green synthesis to produce ZnS nanoparticles with the help of broccoli. Broccoli extract acts as a reducing and protecting agent instead of using chemical materials. The production of ZnS nanoparticles was characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray diffraction techniques. An absorption band at 275 nm corresponds to the formation of zinc sulfide nanoparticles. The band gap energy was determined from the absorption spectrum to be 3.9 eV, which is in a redshift concerning to bulk ZnS. The X-ray diffraction pattern showed that ZnS particles have a cubic structure (zinc blende) with an average crystallite size of 2.57 nm. The adsorption behavior of ZnS nanoparticles was tested with methylene blue dye and it was found that a small amount of ZnS nanoparticles (0.1 g) are able to remove 90% of the dye from an aqueous solution.
doi: 10.17756/nwj.2022-103
Citation: Abed AQ, Al Hindawi AM, Alesary HF. 2022. Green Synthesis of Zinc Sulfide Nanoparticles for the Removal of Methylene Blue Dye from Aqueous Solution. NanoWorld J 8(3): 79-84.