Facile synthesis of hexagonal-shaped CuO NPs from Cu(II)-Schiff base complex for enhanced visible-light-driven degradation of dyes and antimicrobial studies

Abstract

The current research work reports a simple and facile synthesis of hexagonal shaped monoclinic bare CuO NPs and Cu(II)-CuO NPs (CuO NPs from binuclear copper complex derived from Schiffbase,2-(4-(trifluoromethoxy)phenylimino)methyl)-4-methylphenol, TMPM4MP). It is found that the geometrical structure of [Cu(TMPM4MP)2] is square planar around the copper atoms using the results of 1H NMR, ES-Mass, UV–vis, and FTIR studies. In addition, hexagonal shaped CuO NPs were produced in the nano range (10–15 nm) by the thermal decomposition of the Cu(II) complex. The synthesized Schiff base, Cu(II) complex and CuO NPs were characterized using the physicochemical methods, including 1H NMR, 13C NMR, ES-Mass, FT-IR, UV–vis, PL, powder XRD, BET, elemental analysis, SEM, and TEM measurements. The photocatalytic activity of CuO NPs was assessed toward degradation of CV and FL dyes and the results exhibited 90.8 % and 94.2 % efficiencies with degradation rate of 0.1241 and 0.1354 min−1 with in 60 min of reaction time under visible light, which is higher than the bare CuO NPs. In addition, the synthesized Schiff base, Cu(II) complex, and CuO NPs show more antibacterial activity against gram positive and gram negative bacteria, as well as fungi using disc diffusion method. Moreover, the synthesized CuO NPs and Cu(II) complex show more antibacterial activity against gram positive and gram negative bacteria in comparison to their Schiff base and precursor; and comparable to standard drugs.