Gheffar Kh. Kara - Research Laboratory of Inorganic Materials Synthesis, Department of Chemistry,Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
Azadeh Tadjarodi - Research Laboratory of Inorganic Materials Synthesis, Department of Chemistry,Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

Today, releasing of persistent organic and inorganic pollutants in the environmental bodies like atmosphere, lakes, rivers, and soils is the largest environmental problems that leads to serious effects such as ozone hole, high average of carbon dioxide and so on. These pollutants are difficult to remove by traditional water treatment procedures. Therefore, it was necessary to find a feasible way to eliminate these hazardous pollutants by using low-cost materials such as: metallic nanoparticle and their compounds. Here, we report use of the green synthesized nanostructured silver particles in photodegradation of Methylene Blue (MB). The silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) utilized as photocatalyst were synthesized using extract of Rosemarry leaves assisted by microwave irradiation. In this study, we don’t need to add any surfactant and stabilizer, because all materials in the plant extract like flavonoids, sugars and other antioxidants act as reductant for silver ions and as protective layer for the formed particles. Formation of Ag NPs from the reduction silver ions by Rosemarry extract was confirmed by using UV-visible spectroscopy with the appearance of Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) bands around (421 nm). Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), SEM-mapping, Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were applied to characterize the green Ag NPs synthesis. The report exhibit that the bio-synthesized Ag NPs are the suitable candidate as a photocatalyst for removing organic dye (MB) as a pollutant. The degradation of MB increase up on to 95.7% during 10 min. Effect of diverse experimental conditions such as initial pH, concentration of dye, and contact time was studied on the degradation process.[1,2]