Journal of Basic and Applied Engineering Research p-ISSN: 2350-0077; e-ISSN: 2350-0255; Volume 3, Issue 1; January-March, 2016, pp. 41-43 © Krishi Sanskriti Publications http://www.krishisanskriti.org/Publication.html Iron Nanoparticles Catalyzed Degradation of Organic Dyes in Water for Environmental Remediation Priti Malhotra 1 , Rekha Kathal 2 and Aditi Puri 3 1,2,3 Department of Chemistry, Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi, Delhi- 110007 E-mail: 1 pritimalhotra21@gmail.com, 3 aditi2016@gmail.com Abstract—The potent magnetic and catalytic properties of iron can offer a great deal to the degradation of aqueous organic solutes, thus can be efficiently employed for the removal of toxic pollutants from water bodies. Dyes are known organic water pollutants especially in textile wastewater industries and iron nanomaterials can be used for its degradation. Plant mediated synthesized iron nanoparticles containing iron oxides and zerovalent iron (ZVI) have been used as Fenton like catalyst for the degradation of organic solutes. Iron nanoparticles have been synthesized in a greener manner using green extract of Cinnamomum Zeylanicum (cinnamon) and characterized by UV-visible spectroscopic technique and FTIR spectroscopy. Synthesized iron nanoparticles (FeNPs) from plant extracts have enhanced stability due to the presence of biomolecules, which act both as chelating and reducing agent. Iron nanoparticles from green extract of cinnamon have been used for decolorization of aqueous solutions containing dyes such as methylene blue. The adsorption capacity of FeNP has been explored, as they mimic Fenton’s reagent, in the presence of 10% H 2 O 2 so that the quenching of dyes from contaminated water can be determined. 1. “INTRODUCTION” Organic pollutants are major contaminants present in wastewater from textile industries. Textile industries are important for every growing economy of any country but its contribution to the water pollution of the area is equally dangerous. Significant amount of organic molecules particularly dyes are present in the wastewater effluents from textile industries and they are difficult to degrade. To overcome the problem, several biological, chemical or physical methods were introduced in the past. The physical methods which include liquid-liquid extraction, adsorption or ion exchange are not efficient enough because they do not destroy the pollutants but only transfer them from one phase to another phase, while the biological treatments occur at slow rates and sometimes all contaminants may not be biodegradable and can be even toxic to the microorganism acting on the degradation process. Therefore, more sustainable methods for the destruction of various recalcitrant organic pollutants in water have been adopted using zerovalent iron nanoparticles obtained from green extracts [1, 2]. Dyes are nonbiodegradable organic chemicals and their presence in wastewater have posed bigger threat to the environment and their decolorization owing to their high color and organic concentrations is onerous. Most of the commercial dyes used in textile industries are azodyes having characteristic –N=N- structure attached to the carbon atoms present in organic systems whose stability is dangerous for the environment. Azo dyes are a major class of synthetic colored compounds present in dyes stuff used today. The cleavage of azo bond (-N=N-) in the chromophore of an azo dye leads to the decolorization of the dye solution. Iron particles with nano scale size have been recently reported to demonstrate excellent adsorption of azo dyes. Mimicing the Fenton’s process, which employs Fe 2+ /H 2 O 2 and further exploring the enhanced surface activity of nanosized particles, zerovalent iron (ZVI) nanoparticles have been used for the adsorption of methylene blue from water. Since, there are certain disadvantages associated with usage of Fe 2+ salts with H 2 O 2 , it was decided to use as a solid form which could efficiently remove the color of the wastewater containing methylene blue as the dye. Most of the studies in the past were focused on degradation of azo dyes solutions using commercial grade microsized zero valent iron (ZVI) and their potential and versatility in environment scavenging had been well established. As a chemical reactant, nanoscale zerovalent iron (ZVI) are capable of exhibiting high reactivity because of their extremely small particle size, large surface area, and mobility. Utilizing these aspects, the main target was to synthesize nanoscale ZVI and characterize them using UV-vis spectroscopy and FTIR analysis and then its application for removing methylene blue from water samples [3-6]. Owing to the high intrinsic reactivity of FeNPs on their surface sites, a simple green method was employed for the synthesis of ZVI nanoparticles. The plant mediated synthesis of ZVI nanoparticles was not only cost effective but also proved to be of great significance because of its non toxic and biodegradable nature. Apart from this, the green extracts also act as dispersing and capping agents leading to the synthesis