Synthesis of Fe3O4Nanocatalyst Capped Citric Acid (Fe3O4-CA) from Sargassum filipendula

Abstract

The nanocatalyst Fe3O4capped citric acid (Fe3O4-CA) was successfully synthesized using brown seaweed Sargassum filipendula. Sulfated polysaccharides in Sargassum filipendula extract contain sulfate, hydroxyl, and aldehyde groups which cause Fe3+reduction and nanoparticle stabilization. The FT-IR results of Sargassum filipendula extract showed the presence of C-O-SO3stretching vibrations at 1040 cm-1, sulfate groups at 1241 cm-1, aromatic C-C at 1413 cm-1, carbonyl at 1604 cm-1, C-H stretching vibrations at 2932 cm-1, and the hydroxyl group at 3316 cm-1. Meanwhile, citric acid was used as capping to prevent agglomeration of the synthesized nanocatalyst. Fe3O4-CA nanocatalyst were characterized using XRD, PSA, and SEM-EDX. The XRD results were processed using the Debye-Scherrer equation and the crystal size of Fe3O4-CA was 8.5 nm. PSA results show that Fe3O4-CA particles has an average radius of 45.09 nm. This nanocatalyst was also tested for the synthesis of pyrimidine-derivative compound at optimum conditions using 7.5% mol of Fe3O4-CA catalyst, 50 °C for 6 hours, in order to obtain a yield of 83.2%.