Investigation of microstructural, chemical bonding and optical properties of Fe-Cu/rGO nanocomposites

Abstract

This work focuses on the synthesis of Iron – Copper with reduced graphene oxide (Fe-Cu/rGO) nanocomposites by chemical co-precipitation method and their characterizations by Scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transforms infrared (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, UV visible spectroscopy and Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy to investigate the morphology, structural, chemical bonding, optical characteristic and compositional study respectively. Within the Fe-Cu/rGO nanocomposites, the iron concentration ranged from 0 to 100 wt%, while the copper content changed reversibly from 100 to 0 wt% in a step of 20 wt%. SEM images reveal a connective network of grains that varies from 256 nm to 350 nm. The estimated crystallite size ranges from 15.2 nm to 71.3 nm. The micro-strain of Fe-Cu/rGO is altered from 0.00066 to 0.00347. Metal-Oxide (M-O) chemical bond is found shifting to a higher frequency with the addition of iron concentration indicating the increase in backing oxygen and carbon bonding with metal. The carbon defect parameter, ID/IG varied from 1.86 to 1.95 indicating microstructural modification and graphene cluster size decreases with the increase of copper content. The Tauc band gap decreased from 2.68 to 2.14 eV with increased copper content.