Green synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles using whey as an effective chelating agent

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles were successfully synthesized using a whey-assisted sol-gel method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy analysis revealed a wurtzite crystalline structure for ZnO nanoparticles with no impurities present. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), (XRD) observations, and UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy results showed that with an increase in calcination temperature from 400 to 1000 °C, the size of nanoparticles increases from 18.3 to 88.6 nm, while their optical band gap energy decreases to ~3.25 eV. The whey-assisted sol-gel method proved to be highly efficient for the synthesis of crystalline ZnO nanoparticles whose applications are of great interest in material science technology.