SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF MAGNETITE-Eichornia crassipes NANOCOMPOSITE BY CHEMICAL CO-PRECIPITATION METHOD FOR VARIOUS APPLICATIONS

The combination of materials have seriously encouraged the removal of contaminants as these contaminants can pose threats to human and acquatic lives and general ecosysytem. In this work, magnetite-Eichornia crassipes nanocomposite (MECN) was synthesized by doping magnetite nanorpaticles with Eichornia crassipes at 2:1. The synthesized MECN was characterized for their functional groups, morphology and topography, particle size, composition and crystallinity. The Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) results showed prominent reactive functional groups for the absorption bands at 3765.00 cm-1. 2926 cm-1. 2860.50 cm-1. 2354.55 cm-1. 1876.00 cm-1. 1629.81 cm-1. 1381.20 cm-1. 1075.33 cm-1 and 776.62 cm-1 which represents C=C stretching of the alkenes, C-H asymmetric stretching, C-H symmetric stretching, C=O stretching of the carbonyl group, C=C stretching of the alkenes, N-H bending of the amide group, N-O symmetric stretching of the nitro group, C-O stretch of the ether group, Fe-O stretch of magnetite respectively. The energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) results revealed the elemental constituents in weight percentages showing Fe (12.22 %), O (7.20 %), Au (0.50 %), C (0.33 %), Ca (3.23 %), N (3.20 %), Si (66.10), Na (2.22 %), Mg (5 %) respectively. Powdered x-ray diffraction techniques (PXRD) revealed that the synthesized MECN is in a non-crystalline state. The morphology of the synthesized nanocomposite was found to be spherical with a porous surface topography from scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis. The average particle size of the nanoparticles as characterized by transmission electron microscope (TEM) was found to be 6.3 nm.