Green synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles

ABSTRACT The interest in the synthesis of nanoparticles using plant extracts has been growing in recent decades due to the non-generation of toxic chemical residues and bland synthesis conditions. Brazil is one of the leaders in planted forests, mainly of the genus Eucalyptus, because of this the objective of this work was to synthesize nanoparticles of zinc oxide using ethanolic extract of the leaves of Eucalyptus dunnii. The leaves were dried and ground to obtain powder, 10 g of this was added in 100 ml of ethyl alcohol, the solution was kept in a water bath at 80 °C for 75 min, the solution was filtered to obtain the extract. For the synthesis 20 mL of extract and 1.57 g of zinc acetate were used, the solution was maintained at 80 ºC under vigorous magnetic stirring for 20 min, after which the heat treatment was carried out in a muffle at 500 ºC for 2 h. The obtained nanoparticles presented crystalline characteristic and average diameter of 32,24 nm. The FTIR spectrum of the extract showed several peaks related to reducing compounds capable of performing the synthesis, while the spectrum of the nanoparticles showed that even after calcination, the presence of organic compounds that can be responsible for their stabilization is still detected. Thus, the ethanolic extract of E. dunnii has a reducing capacity to perform the synthesis of crystalline na-noparticles of zinc oxide.