Characterization of oil palm leaves and effect of pH variation on sol-gel synthesis of zinc oxide using oil palm leaves

Zinc oxide is one of the most used nanoparticles globally these days. ZnO can be classified in the group of inorganic metal oxides that comprises a wide range of nanostructures. This research is focusing on the application of ZnO as the material for manufacturing food packaging. Production or synthesis of nanoparticles can be achieved by different methods. Some of the routes such are associated with environmental pollution. These problems lead to finding an alternative that can ensure a cleaner and safer route for synthesizing Zinc Oxide. Thus, using plant extract as reducing agents for synthesizing the nanoparticles provide more safe and convenient making it becoming the most preferred methods as they are clean and cost effective. Oil palm leaves was selected as the material for biosynthesis of ZnO nanoparticles because of its availability in this country as it generated as the by-product of palm oil. Thus, as for the aim of this study, characterization of the oil palm leaves must be done to study the zinc and other minerals contents of the oil palm leaves using ICP-OES and FTIR analysis. Green Sol-gel method is chosen as the method for synthesizing ZnO and to study the effect of pH variation to the properties of ZnO by using XRD and FTIR analysis. The FTIR analysis for the both leaves extract liquid and powder shows peak at 3316.09 and 3296.12 cm-1, respectively. This alcohol O-H stretching group indicates that the leaves extract has the similar hydroxyl bond with alcohol that makes it suitable for alcohol substituent for ZnO synthesis. The ICP-OES data confirms the presence of Zinc component in the leaves that indicates the compatibility of oil palm leaves for synthesizing of ZnO. The ZnO was synthesis at different pH. From FTIR analysis of the ZnO, it can be confirmed there was presence of ZnO in the precipitate as shown in the peak of the range 800-900 cm-1 for all variation of ZnO. It also confirms that indeed the pH of the solution does affect the properties of the synthesized ZnO. The XRD analysis shows that average size increasing from 15.19 to 20.51 nm as the pH of the solution increases from 7 to 12. The composition analysis of XRD exhibits that only at pH 12 the ZnO produce is in pure form.