Abstract

Nano chemistry, in its broadest sense, uses the tools of synthetic and material chemistry to generate nanomaterial with size, shape, and surface properties that can be designed to evoke a specific function with the aim to be utilized in a particular application/end use. Nanotechnology has garnered a great deal of attention in the last few years as miniaturization and nanomaterial are often seen as the key for a sustainable future. Concerning the causes of cancer, skin, respiratory, and digestive system disorders, organic synthetic non-degradable/decomposable compounds including phenol, methyl orange, and rhodamine B have been found to pollute water and the surrounding environment. Therefore, there is need to device a means of degrading or decomposing these substances into none harmful substances by the used of photo-catalyst which were safe for the environment. Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) nanoparticles have been produced by biosynthesis. Prosopis africana plant extract from its watery leaves was used to biosynthesize Al2O3. 10 ml of the extract was added to 50 ml of aluminum nitrate salt solution, and the mixture was continuously stirred until the color changed, in order to create the nanoparticles. The FT-IR and UV-visible spectrophotometers were used to characterize the nanoparticles. The FTIR shows some peaks at 3338.28 and 1634.05 cm3 in the nanoparticles and some peaks at 2862.70, 1974.80, 1396.10, and 1039.50 cm3 in the plant extract. The results of UV visible spectroscopy showed absorption maxima at 295 nm. Additionally, the FT-IR suggests that a protein functional group might be in charge of the bio reduction. Using methyl orange as a model molecule, the photocatalytic activity of the Al2O3 nanoparticles was investigated. The findings indicate that the proportion of methyl orange degradation decreases as time increases, with values of 61.34%, 51.59%, 42.01%, 31.17%, 23.15%, 15.50%, and 9.99 % for 0,20, 40, 60, 80, 100, and 120 minutes, respectively. The kinetics rate equal to k=0.0165 S-1 indicates that the rate of reaction is following pseudo first-order kinetics. With a high R-square value of 0.9107, the first order kinetics model is deemed adequate to describe the photo catalytic degradation process. This suggests that there is a robust association between the theoretical model and the experimental results. This suggests that methyl orange photo degradation can be accelerated by using the nanoparticles as a photo catalyst.