Synthesis and Characterization of Pomegranate/Magnetic TiO2 and γ-Fe2O3 Nanocomposites

Abstract

Enzymes are biological catalysts that formed in living cells and all of the reactions in  organisms occur in very mild conditions and that regulate them. However, free enzymes usually have poor stability towards pH, heat or other factors and are difficult to recover and reuse. Therefore, immobilization techniques have been developed to make the most of the purified enzymes, that have been utilized to prepare durable, resuable, high-performance and economically-applicable biocatalysts [1]. The immobilized enzymes can be used repeatedly and continuously, which are catalyzed a number of very complex chemical transformations between biological macromolecules [2]. Pomegranate is a plant with high antioxidant capacity because it contains high levels of phenolic and flavonoid compounds. We investigated whether or not the immobilized on TiO2- and γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticules via the phenolic and flavonoid compounds of pomegranate. For this purpose, superparamagnetic nanocomposite, TiO2- and γ-Fe2O3- phenolic/ flavonoid was prepared by using phenolic/flavonoid groups of pomegranate. Based on the spectrophotometric measurement it has been shown that immobilization takes place. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) (Figure 1) and Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR) were used to characterize the TiO2 and γ-Fe2O3-phenolic/flavonoid-pomegranate nanocomposite, and confirming that pomegranate was immobilized onto the TiO2 and γ-Fe2O3 by phenolic/ flavonoid of pomegranate [3,4]. This study can provide a big boost for prospective studies in the medical practice of diseases.