Abstract
Copper nanoparticles were synthesised by the green method using African spinach and peppermint leaves extract as both reducing and capping agents. The synthesized nanoparticles were then characterized by Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy, (EDS), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectroscopy (FTIR). EDS confirmed the formation of copper nanoparticles and SEM images showed spherical nanoparticles with an average size of 3.44 μm. FTIR showed that the functional groups on the leaves’ extracts were capped on the surface of the nanoparticles. The nanoparticles were then casted into a nano- filter membrane using cellulose actetate and used to filter contaminated water gotten from a canal at the University of Lagos. The filtration efficiency of this nano-filter was compared with the ordinary cellulose acetate membrane and the result showed that the copper nano-filter membrane gave an odorless, cleaner water than that of ordinary cellulose acetate membrane. The microbial analysis also revealed that about 96.5 % of the bacteria was removed using the copper nano-filter membrane.
Highlights
There is a general problem of water pollution
After copper nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized from African spinach and peppermint leaf extracts, the brown coloured powder obtained was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS)
The contaminated water was found to have a total count of 230,000 cfu/ml for heterotrophic bacteria; while in the treated water a total count of 8000 cfu/ml was obtained from water treated with copper nano-filter membrane and 11,000 cfu/ml was obtained from water treated with ordinary cellulose membrane. These results show that the nano-filter membrane succeeded in removing poisonous bacteria and has removed 96.5 % of the heterotrophic bacteria found
Summary
There is a general problem of water pollution. Most of our water bodies are polluted and are not fit for usage. There is need to provide easy, cost friendly and environmental benign method of treating our water This can be achieved with the use of copper nanoparticles. Various synthetic routes have been employed for the synthesis of copper nanoparticles including chemical reduction (Dong et al, 2018, Gajera, 2014), electrochemical (Fernandez et al, 2017), hydrothermal (Seku et al, 2018), microwave assisted techniques (Galletti et al, 2013) and biological synthesis (Kulkarni and Kulkarni, 2013) These days, the emphasis has been shifted towards the green synthesis of Cu-NPs by using plant extracts as stabilizers and reducing agents (Subbaiya and Selvam, 2015). The efficiency of this nano-filter membrane was compared with the ordinary cellulose acetate membrane by studying the extent to which they can successfully treat colour, odour and micro organisms
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