Synthesis and Characterisation of Iron Based Nanoparticles and Their Use in Mitigating Atrazine Herbicide

Atrazine is a widely used herbicide for the control of grassy and broadleaved weeds in maize, sorghum, sugarcane, timber plantations, etc. Atrazine has high persistence (half life125 d in sandy soils) and mobility in some types of soils because of reduced absorbtion and thus causes contamination of soil and groundwater. In order to degrade the herbicide atrazine residue, iron based nanoparticles were synthesized using different stabilizing agents and characterized with powder X-ray diffraction (XRD). The effective stabilization was achieved by immobilizing the nanoparticles with different kind of biopolymers like carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC) and sodium alginate as stabilizing agents. The synthesized nanoparticles were used for studying degradation of atrazine. The estimation of atrazine was done by HPLC. For effective removal of atrazine, studies were conducted by optimizing the experimental conditions like concentration of nanoparticles, types of capping agent and types of stabilizing agents. Best results were obtained by silver (Ag) modified Fe₃O₄ - CMC nanoparticles which showed 82–88% degradation of atrazine. This method can be used for the effective degradation of atrazine from soil samples.