Synthesis and Characterization of Copper Oxide (CuO) Nanoparticles

Transition metal oxides play crucial role in several areas of physics, chemistry, and materials science. Nano-scale materials have tremendous interest in their unique thermal, electronic, electrical and optical properties. Copper oxide (CuO) has great catalytic activities which can be utilised in biosensors and electrochemical super capacitors. It can also be used as a catalyst and semiconductor in solar energy. In the present work, copper oxide nanoparticles are synthesized by using sol-gel process. The structure and morphology of the nanoparticle is characterized by using X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) and UV-Vis spectroscopy analysis. The XRD pattern shows that particles are crystalline, nano-sized and the crystal structure of CuO nanoparticles is monoclinic and average size of particles is found to be 18.5nm which is determined by using the Debye Scherrer formula. The UV-Vis spectra of CuO nanoparticle show that the particles have energy band gap of semiconductor. FESEM analysis indicates that prepared product consists of uniform flake like structure.