Effect of pH Concentration on Facile Synthesized Copper Nanoparticles

ABSTRACT

Copper (Cu) was one of the first metals to be excavated and used by humans. Copper nanoparticles have a lot of attention due to their high electrical conductivity, high melting point, low electrochemical migration and low cost. It also demonstrated antiviral activity such as a recent study showing that the coronavirus survives for several days on glass, plate, and stain-less steel, but dies within a few hours on Cu. It is observed that controlling particle size expands the range of innumerable applications. Several methods have been employed for the synthesis of Cu nanoparticles such as Physical, Chemical, biological and green synthesis. In the present work, nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by a facile electrochemical deposition method. In which, Copper sulfate pentahydrate (CuSO4.5H2 O), is used as a pre-cursor and Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) used to maintain pH during the deposition in de-ionized water (DI) as a solvent. The structural and optical characterization of nanoparticles were performed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field effect Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), and UV-Vis Spectroscopy. The FCC structure of Cu nanoparticles has been analyzed by XRD and the size varies from 65 nm-30 nm by controlling pH of electrolyte solution. In the optical studies, it is observed that the bandgap is varying in the range of 2.98 eV to 4.97 eV, calculated by Tauc plot. © 2022. Lokesh et al.