Green synthesis of zinc oxide particles with apple-derived compounds and their application as catalysts in the transesterification of methyl benzoates

ZnO 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 N2 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.

Study on the substitution effects of zinc benzoate terpyridine complexes on photoluminescence, antiproliferative potential and DNA binding properties

Six zinc(II) complexes, [Zn(OCOPh)2LR] (R = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) were synthesized by the reaction of zinc benzoate and six para-substituted 4-phenyl-terpyridine complexes and their structures were confirmed by elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1H NMR and X-ray single crystal diffraction analysis. Their photoluminescent properties in solid and in solutions of DMSO were studied. Three human cancer cell lines were used for antiproliferative potential: human lung cancer cell line (A549), human esophageal cancer cell line (Eca-109) and human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7). The results have shown that these zinc complexes have good inhibitory effects on cancer cells, which are better than that of the commonly used clinical drug cisplatin.
The ability of the complexes to binding to CT-DNA was studied by UV spectroscopy and fluorescence titration, while the interaction between the complexes and CT-DNA, AT6, GC6 short-chain DNA sequences and G-quadruplex were analyzed by circular dichroism (CD). It is found that these complexes can bind to DNA, and the binding mode is mainly intercalator. The docking of the complexes with the DNA fragment was simulated using molecular docking software. All the results clearly display that the substituents at these ligands of the complexes have the substitution effects on the properties of photoluminescence, antiproliferative potential and DNA binding study.

Crystal structure of tri-aqua-(4-cyano-benzoato-κ(2) O,O’)(nicotinamide-κN (1))zinc 4-cyano-benzoate.

Christopher Miller