Abstract

In the present work, nickel oxide nanoparticles (NiO-NPs) were synthesized by sol-gel method using nickel nitrate (Ni(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O) and fresh egg white (EW) as a source of nickel and a particle size control agent at various calcination temperatures, respectively. The NiO-NPs examined with FT-IR, UV-Vis, XRD, FESEM/EDX/PSA, and TGA analyses. According to obtained results from the XRD spectra, the size of the nanoparticles increases with increasing calcination temperature, so that the temperature below 400 degrees C is a suitable temperature for calcination the NiO-NPs. The results of the FESEM images show that the synthesized nanoparticles are uniformly formed, and also FTIR analysis was used to determine the formation of bonds. On the other hand, by performing a cytotoxicity test (MTT) on U87MG cell lines, 50 of cells died by nanoparticles at a concentration (IC50) of 15.62 mu g/mL. In the end, the photocatalytic activity of NiO-NPs was investigated to remove the methylene blue (MB) dye under UVA light irradiation, which degradation percentage of the MB dye after 4 h was about 79. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.