Hasnatul Fitriah Abd Rahim¹, Hamizah Mohd Zaki^1,, Mohammad Noor Jalil¹, Siti Halimah Sarijo¹

The development of environmentally friendly herbicides had raised a formulation of controlled release by using nanocarrier as one of the alternatives as it provide slow-release characteristics with precise concentration and time setting. The synthesis of host using zinc chloride (ZnCl₂) as a precursor to form zinc layered hydroxide-chloride (ZLC) and intercalated into herbicide which is 2-napthoxyacetic acid (BNOA) to produce nanocomposites via ion exchange called Zinc layered hydroxide-2-napthoxyacetic acid (ZLCB). The formation of nanocomposites was analysed by using Powder X-Ray Diffraction (PXRD). The result showed an expanding of basal spacing from 7.9Å to 27.3Å, indicated the intercalation of an anion into the interlayer of the host. Then, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) proved a new peak formed around 1607 cm^-1indicated the COO^-(carboxylate anions) confirmed the present of BNOA anions has successfully incorporated into the interlayers of ZLC. The surface area and pore volume were increased from 6.6 m²g^-1 to 27.5 m²g^-1 and 0.02 cm³g^-1to 0.04 cm³g^-1 respectively, showing that the BNOA had successfully inserted into the interlayer of ZLC. Moreover, the loading percentage of BNOA estimated by CHNS analyser was 83.9%. The controlled release property shown that the release of BNOA in the various aqueous solution is in order of Na₂PO₃> Na₂SO₄> NaCl and fitted into pseudo-second order of kinetic models.

zinc layered hydroxide, 2-naphtoxyacetic acid, release kinetic, ion exchange, herbicides