In this investigation, hydroxyapatite (HA) was synthesized using sea urchin spines (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) via a precipitation and heat treatment method at three different temperatures (500, 600 and 700 °C). Biosynthesized HA was characterized to determine the vibration of functional groups, morphology, particle size, crystalline structure and chemical composition. For this, Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy with Attenuated Total Reflectance (FTIR-ATR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) coupled with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) were used, respectively. The FTIR-ATR results reveal that the most defined characteristic HA bonds (O-H, P-O and C-O bonds) were better defined at higher synthesis temperatures. SEM also presented evidence that temperature has a significant effect on morphology. EDS results showed that the Ca/P ratio increased in the samples at higher temperatures. XRD analysis presented the characteristic peaks of HA, showing a lower crystallinity when the synthesis temperature increased. Finally, the XPS confirmed that the material resulting from biosynthesis was HA. Hence, according to these results, the synthesis temperature of HA has a significant effect on the characteristics of the resulting material.

In this work, the photocatalytic activity of nanoparticles (NPs) of zinc oxide synthetized by Prosopis laevigata as a stabilizing agent was evaluated in the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye under UV radiation. The theoretical study of the photocatalytic degradation process was carried out by a Langmuir–Hinshelwood–Hougen–Watson (LHHW) model. Zinc oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by varying the concentration of natural extract of Prosopis laevigata from 1, 2, and 4% (weight/volume), identifying the samples as ZnO_PL1%, ZnO_PL2%, and ZnO_PL4%, respectively. The characterization of the nanoparticles was carried out by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), where the absorption band for the Zn-O vibration at 400 cm⁻¹ was presented; by ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV–vis) the value of the band gap was calculated, resulting in 2.80, 2.74 and 2.63 eV for the samples ZnO_PL1%, ZnO_PL2%, and ZnO_PL4%, respectively; XRD analysis indicated that the nanoparticles have a hexagonal zincite crystal structure with an average crystal size of 55, 50, and 49 in the sample ZnO_PL1%, ZnO_PL2%, and ZnO_PL4%, respectively. The morphology observed by TEM showed that the nanoparticles had a hemispherical shape, and the ZnO_PL4% sample presented sizes ranging between 29 and 45 nm. The photocatalytic study showed a total degradation of the MB in 150, 120, and 60 min for the samples ZnO_PL1%, ZnO_PL2%, and ZnO_PL4%, respectively. Also, the model explains the experimental observation of the first-order kinetic model in the limit of low concentrations of dye, indicating the influence of the mass transfer processes.