Soliman, Mohamed Mostafa AboelhassanAlegria, ElisabeteDa Costa Ribeiro, Ana PaulaAlves, Marta MSaraiva, Marta S.Montemor, M.F.Pombeiro, Armando2020-06-172020-06-172020-05-21SOLIMAN, Mohamed M. A.; [et al] – G Green synthesis of zinc oxide particles with apple-derived compounds and their application as catalysts in the transesterification of methyl benzoates. Dalton Transactions. ISSN 1477-9234. Vol. 49, N.º 19 (2020), pp. 6488-6494http://hdl.handle.net/10400.21/11874Este trabalho foi financiado pelo Concurso Anual para Projetos de Investigação, Desenvolvimento, Inovação e Criação Artística (IDI&CA) 2019 do Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa. Código de referência IPL/2019/STREAM_ISELZnO nanoparticles (ZnONPs) were successfully synthesized using bravo-de-esmolfe apple extract in aqueous medium at room temperature. ZnO microparticles, prepared with a pure apple phytochemical, quercetin (ZnOq), or without phytochemicals (ZnO) were studied for comparative purposes. The re-use of apple waste for highly efficient catalyst production, based on green synthetic routes, can be added to the concept of a circular economy. The synthesized ZnO particles were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and N-2 adsorption/desorption Brunauer- Emmett-Teller (BET) theory. The XRD patterns indicated the formation of a hexagonal wurtzite phase with high purity and SEM and TEM analyses revealed the morphology of the particles. The apple extract produced spherical ZnONPs composed of round lamina-like structures, similar to the micro sized lamina-like shape of ZnOq and dissimilar to the flower-like shape of ZnO. The green synthesized ZnO nanoparticles (ZnONPs) led to a high product yield of ca. 96% within 24 h of reaction time in the transesterification reaction of different carboxylic esters.engGreen synthesisZinc oxide particlesCatalystsTransesterificationMethyl benzoatesjournal article10.1039/d0dt01069c