Green arbitrated synthesis of Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles with nanorod structure from pomegranate leaves and Congo red dye degradation studies for water treatment

An efficient, cost effective and eco-friendly approach has been developed for the synthesis of Fe3O4 magnetic nanorods (MNRs) using aqueous extract of Pomegranate leaves (PG). The synthesized PG-Fe3O4 MNRs were characterized by using different microscopic and spectroscopic techniques. The synthesized PG-Fe3O4 MNRs confirmed by Raman scattering and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy reveal that PG-Fe3O4 MNRs are well dispersed with uniform size (45-60 nm) and exhibits high specific surface area of 14.6 m(2) g(-1) calculated using BET adsorption-desorption method. The magnetic behavior of PG-Fe3O4 nanorods was studied using vibrational sample magnetometer (VSM) at 300 K, and the results obtained shows enhanced magnetic properties of saturation magnetization (M-s, similar to 59.0 emu/g), remnant magnetization (M-r, similar to 15.5 emu/g) and coercivity (H-e, 220 Oe). Furthermore, we also reported the use of the synthesized PG-Fe(3)O(4)MNRs as an adsorbent to dispose of the Congo red (CR) containing waste water, which exhibited more favorable adsorptive properties as compared to the bulk-metal oxides with low surface area. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.