Citrus fruit peel extract mediated eco-friendly synthesis of Ag @Co bimetallic nanoparticles and study of their optical and structural characterizations

Abstract

The present study focuses on the preparation of Silver-Cobalt bimetallic nanoparticles by green method from metal precursors of silver nitrate & cobalt nitrate and the locally available lemon peel extract which is acts as a reducing and stabilizing agent. Firstly, the generation of bimetallic nano particles was observed by changing the colour in the reaction mixture. The optical measurements of the synthesized nano particles were studied by using UV–Visible spectroscopy. The results showed the maximum absorption wavelength at 447 nm for lemon peel extract. Further, the presence of functional groups in the prepared hybrid material was evaluated by FT-IR spectroscopy. Moreover, the crystallinity of as prepared nano particles was studied by using XRD analysis. The SEM results indicating that the produced bimetallic nano particles were predominately spherical in shape. In addition, the composition of elements of the developed hybrid material was examined by EDX analysis. Therefore, this newly developed method is simple, fast, cost-effective, eco-friendly and could prove alternative to physical and chemical routes for the preparation of nano particles.