Green synthesis of Fe nanoparticles using Citrus maxima peels aqueous extracts

Abstract Fruit peels were discarded as inevitable wastes in the production of fruit juice which wasted our resources and caused pollution problems. In this paper, iron nanoparticles were synthesized using Citrus maxima peel extracts to reduce Fe(III) in aqueous solution. The nanoparticles were characterized by TEM, EDS, XPS, FTIR, DLS and Zeta potential methods. Based on the characterization results, irregular iron nanoparticles with diameters of 10–100 nm were synthesized successfully. Moreover, the nanoparticles were mainly composed of Fe0 nanoparticles which were coated with various biomolecules from the extracts as capping or stabilizing agents.