Facile synthesis of Fe2O3 nanoparticles from Egyptian insecticide cans for efficient photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue and crystal violet dyes

Ehab A Abdelrahman; R M Hegazey; Yousra H Kotp; Ahmed Alharbi

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2019.117195

Facile synthesis of Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles from Egyptian insecticide cans for efficient photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue and crystal violet dyes

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2019 Nov 5:222:117195. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2019.117195. Epub 2019 May 31.

Authors

Ehab A Abdelrahman¹, R M Hegazey², Yousra H Kotp³, Ahmed Alharbi⁴

Affiliations

¹ Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Benha University, Benha 13518, Egypt. Electronic address: ehab.abdelrahman@fsc.bu.edu.eg.
² Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute, Ahmed El Zumer Street, Nasr City, Hai Al-Zehour, Cairo 11727, Egypt.
³ Hydrogeochemistry Dept., Desert Research Center, El Mataryia Cairo 11753, Egypt.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Applied Science, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

PMID: 31176151
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2019.117195

Abstract

In this study, Fe₂O₃ (hematite) nanoparticles with different crystallite sizes (40-59 nm) were synthesized from Egyptian insecticide cans using the combustion method. The organic fuels were urea, glycine, L-alanine, and L-valine. Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles were characterized utilizing different devices such as BET, PL, FT-IR, XRD, HR-TEM, FE-SEM, UV-Vis, and DTG. Crystal violet (CV) and methylene blue (MB) dyes were efficiently removed from aqueous solution by photocatalytic degradation under UV irradiation in the presence of Fe₂O₃ and H₂O₂. The % degradation of 50 mL crystal violet or methylene blue dye (20 mg/L) using 0.1 g Fe₂O₃ in the presence of H₂O₂ was 100% after 30 or 40 min, respectively. Also, the degradation processes are fitted well with the first order model. Besides, the photocatalytic activity of Fe₂O₃ unaltered even after it was reused three times. Hence, the synthesized Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles can be considered a promising and efficient photocatalyst for the degradation of crystal violet and methylene blue dyes.

Keywords: Crystal violet dye; Fe(2)O(3) nanoparticles; Insecticide cans; Methylene blue dye; Photocatalytic degradation.