Optical Properties of bio-engineered nano-scaled Y2O3 particles via Hyphaene thebaica natural extract

Abstract

In this study, the synthesis of yttrium oxide (Y2O3) nanoparticles was made using an eco-friendly methodology with a natural extract. The fruit of doum (Hyphaene thebaica) was used as both an effective chelating as well as a stabilizing agent for synthesizing Y2O3 nanoparticles (NPs). Once the NPs were obtained, diverse characterization techniques were used to determine the physicochemical and optical properties of the Y2O3 NPs; The Optical bandgap was calculated by employing the Kubelka-Munk function and was found to be ~ 5.65 eV, the Fourier Transform Infrared spectrum of the Y2O3 NPs shows the presence of the Y–O–Y and O–Y–O stretching vibrational modes in the synthesized Y2O3 nanoparticles bonds at 437 and 580 cm-1, XRD results indicated that the Y2O3 NPs exhibit a body-centered cubic structure with average size approximately 30 nm, While TEM images revealed that the NPs had a quasi-spherical structure, the nanoparticles present a quasi-spherical morphology with sizes ranging from 5 nm to 15 nm, indicating an influence of the concentration of the H. thebaica extract in the synthesis process of Y2O3 NPs.