Delivered by Ingenta to: Guest User IP : 115.134.58.50 Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:38:10 ARTICLE Copyright © 2013 by American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America Advanced Science, Engineering and Medicine Vol. 5, pp. 193–197, 2013 (www.aspbs.com/asem) Synthesis and Characterization of CuO Nanosheets in Polyvinylpyrrolidone by Quick Precipitation Method Mahdi Shahmiri 1 , Nor Azowa Ibrahim 1, * , Wan Md Zin Wan Yunus 2 , Kamyar Shameli 1 , Norhazlin Zainuddin 1 , and Hossein Jahangirian 1 1 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia 2 Department of Chemistry Center For Defence Foundation Studies National Defence University of Malaysia, Sungai Besi Camp 57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia In this project, CuO nanosheets were grown successfully in polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) by a simple and quick chemical method in the absence of templates. Copper nitrate, PVP and sodium hydroxide were used as cop- per precursor, stabilizer and accelerator, respectively. The products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–vis spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive anal- ysis of X-rays (EDAX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spec- troscopy. The result of the XRD and EDAX confirmed the formation of pure single-phase CuO. Generation of the CuO nanosheets and nanorods were confirmed by UV–visible spectra. FE-SEM depicted that layered oval nanosheets with layered structures were formed, which the thickness of nanosheets are in the range of 10–15 nm. TEM showed that, nanorods could crystallize and aggregate into the nanosheets. TEM also released that the mean diameters of the width of CuO nanosheets, with standard deviation 66.87 ± 54.45 nm and the mean diameters of the length with standard deviation 451.94 ± 211.18 nm. FT-IR illustrates that CuO nanosheets were modified by PVP. KEYWORDS: Nanosheets, Nanorods, CuO, Quick Precipitation, Polyvinylpyrrolidone. 1. INTRODUCTION Nanotechnology and nanoscience have attracted scientists’ attention over recent years due to its vast number of tech- nological applications. Nanotechnology is defined as the synthesis of materials by controlling its size and shape at a nanometer scale, where the physical and chemical properties differ considerably from those of the bulk sub- stances. During the past decade the synthesis of metal oxide nanoparticles such as those of zinc, gold, iron and cobalt have caught the interest of researchers. Among these metal oxides, CuO nanoparticles have been inves- tigated quite considerably. Cupric oxide (CuO) is a tran- sition metal oxide, p-type semiconducting material with a monoclinic crystal structure and an indirect band gap, e.g., of 1.0–2.08 eV 1 2 with many practical applications, such as an antimicrobial, 3 photothermal and photocon- ductive applications, 4 chemical and biological sensing, 5 6 ∗ Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: argm2010@yahoo.com Received: 20 April 2012 Revised/Accepted: 30 April 2012 catalysis, 7 application in lithium ion batteries 8 and solar cell. 9 Throughout the past decade different routes have been suggested to fabricate CuO nanoparticles, such as one- step low-temperature solid-state, 10 surfactant templating method, 11 solution-phase route, 12 electrochemical, 13 ther- mal annealing of copper thin films, 14 wet chemical reaction, 15 hydrothermal method, 16 thermal Oxidation, 17 microwave irradiation, 18 and quick-precipitation. 19 Some of these methods have limitations due to require- ments for high temperature, expensive instruments and special catalysis. For cost-effectiveness and simplicity of operation, quick-precipitation is preferred. Different forms of CuO have been synthesized by these meth- ods, such as nanosphers, nanorods, nanowires, nanosheets, nanoplatelets, nanowhiskers, nanofluids and nanoribbons. In the synthesis of metal oxide nanoparticles, polymers are used to stabilize the aggregation of metal atoms. The most common polymer to be used in preparing the metal oxide is Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) due to its distinct shape, dissolved metal salts and transport facility. In addi- tion, Polyvinylpyrrolidone can be controlled kinetically Adv. Sci. Eng. Med. 2013, Vol. 5, No. 3 2164-6627/2013/5/193/005 doi:10.1166/asem.2013.1227 193