Facile preparation of Crescentia cujete –mediated copper oxide nanoparticles for dye degradation properties

Textile industries are the foremost cause of the generation of water pollutants. More than 8000 chemicals are used by the textile industry for various operations including printing and dyeing operations, and among other steps in the production of textiles, around 16% is employed in the dyeing process. The toxicity of the dye effluents that are produced by industries has posed a major risk to human well-being and the aquatic environment. Therefore, the removal of these dyes from the effluent is the only solution to save natural water resources. There are some methods to degrade the dyes from the wastewater, but the biological methods are preferred over the other methods; particularly, the plant-mediated copper oxide nanoparticles (CuONPs) are chosen as they are cost-efficient and eco-friendly and almost completely degrade the toxic dyes. The CuONPs that are prepared using expensive chemical and physical techniques involve hazardous chemicals, harmful organic solvents, and high pressure which restrict their usage environmentally. Therefore, in this present study, the most underutilized leaf extracts of Crescentia cujete are used for the synthesis of copper oxide nanoparticles which have various properties like antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, cytotoxic, wound healing, and antioxidants. The synthesized CuONPs will be characterized using absorption spectroscopy, zeta potential, zeta size, SEM, and FT-IR analysis. The catalytic activity and kinetics of the synthesized CuONPs will be studied on industrial dye mixtures such as methylene blue (MB), rose bengal (RB), and reactive black-B (RB-B). In addition, radical quenching of the synthesized CuONPs has also been investigated.