Synthesis, physical properties and antibacterial activity of Ce doped CuO: a novel nanomaterial

Abstract

CuO nanostructures doped with Ce at different concentration levels have been synthesized via a simple co-precipitation technique. The prepared samples have been characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and UV–visible absorption spectroscopy. Structural studies exhibit the presence of a monoclinic structure of CuO for undoped and Ce doped samples without any additional impurity phases. SEM images have revealed the rod-like morphology with an average diameter of 30 nm for undoped CuO. FTIR results of undoped and Ce doped CuO nanostructures have further confirmed the formation of monoclinic CuO. The optical band gap calculated from the Tauc relation has been observed to be 2.48 eV for undoped CuO nanostructures, which is found to decrease down to 2.2 eV with the increase in the Ce doping level. This tuning in the optical band gap may be attributed to the merging of the impurity band with the conduction band of CuO. The Ce doping induced effects on the antibacterial activity of the CuO nanostructures have been examined by recording the growth curves of bacteria in the presence of prepared nanostructures. It has been observed that S. aureus bacterium may be completely eradicated by the application of Ce doped CuO nanostructures. Finally, the cytotoxicity analysis has shown that the synthesized undoped and Ce doped CuO nanostructures are biocompatible and non-toxic towards the human cell line SH-SY5Y cells.