Biogenic synthesis of hybrid array of ZnO nanoparticles and nanorods for modeling the surface response behavior of Congo red dye in adsorptive studies

Abstract

ZnO nanostructures are of substantial interest because of having exclusive potential to inculcate in the plethora of applications. Numbers of reports have been reported in literature depicting the synthesis of ZnO nanostructures with variable dimensions using different precursors with complex mechanism. As per our knowledge, no research work discussing the synthesis of hybrid array of ZnO nanoparticles and nanorods based on single precursor in one pot biogenic reaction has been discoursed so far. Herein, ZnO nanostructures (0-D and 1-D) have been biogenically synthesized at room temperature with average crystallite size of 43.05 nm as depicted by XRD results and further utilized to remove Congo Red dye from aqueous solution. The maximum monolayer adsorption capacity has been found to be 16.6670 mg g−1 at 298 K temperature. Isotherm models and thermodynamic study have suggested the feasible monolayer adsorption of Congo Red dye on ZnO with activation energy of 21.616 kJ mol−1.