Abstract
A novel approach for synthesizing copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles (NPs) through electrospinning is reported. The approach is based on producing rough and discontinuous electrospun nanofibers from a precursor based on copper acetate salt and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) polymer. Selectively removing the polymeric phase from the fibers produced highly rough CuO nanofibers, which were composed of NPs that are weakly held together in a one-dimensional (1D) manner. Sonication in a suitable liquid under controlled conditions completely disintegrated the nanofibers into NPs, resulting in the formation of uniform CuO NPs suspension. Aberration corrected high resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) showed that the obtained NPs are highly crystalline and nearly sphere-like with a diameter of 30 to 70 nm. Thus, electrospinning, which is a low cost and industrially scalable technique, can also be employed for economic and large scale synthesis of NPs.
Highlights
Electrospinning, which came to light more than seven decades ago [1], turned out to be such a powerful and versatile technique for continuous and large scale production of nanofibers
The morphology of NPs was analyzed through scanning electron microscope (SEM) and their compositional analysis was carried out using energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD)
It is well admitted that in electrospinning, the solution flow rate and the voltage are the most important processing parameters that have the greatest influence over the obtained nanofibers morphology and features
Summary
Electrospinning, which came to light more than seven decades ago [1], turned out to be such a powerful and versatile technique for continuous and large scale production of nanofibers. The process involves the application of strong electric field to generate electrically charged jet from the viscous solution through a tiny nozzle. As the electrical potential overcomes the surface tension of the solution droplet coming out of the nozzle, the jet emerges from the droplet end and continues to thin as it approaches the collector. The process has been extensively employed for fabricating a variety of polymeric nanofibers [2]. By varying the electrospinning configuration and environmental parameters, fibers with varying morphology such as porous and core-shell [3] can be produced. By adding a certain salt in specific proportion to the polymeric precursor, nanofibers of various ceramics can be obtained after selectively removing the polymeric phase through heat treatment [4,5,6]
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