"Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of CuO Nanostrips and Their Integration into Graphene Oxide Sheets for Biomedical Applications"
The microwave-assisted synthesis of nanomaterials have become attractive for research in the last years. Among these nanomaterials, CuO nanostrips are one of morphologies less reported in the literature. On the other hand, graphene oxide has been used to form nanocomposites. Both CuO nanostrips and graphene oxide seem to exhibit good properties for biomedical applications. This study aims to synthesize of CuO nanostrips by microwave-assisted method as a function of microwave irradiation, synthesize graphene oxide through Hummers modified method and produce CuO/GO nanocomposites. Then, the samples were characterized by XRD, Raman, UV-Vis and FTIR spectroscopy, FE-SEM and TEM. Diffraction peaks of CuO samples showed a single phase of CuO that correspond to the monoclinic system. Raman spectra of samples confirmed the formation graphene oxide as well as CuO nanostrips. FE-SEM and TEM images demonstrated the strip-like morphology of CuO nanomaterials; in addition, the average length of CuO nanostrips synthesized at maximum microwave irradiation is 313 nm. The optical bandgap of the samples was obtained using UV-Vis absorbance spectra. The FTIR spectra were employed to study the proportions of functional groups when CuO nanostrips were incorporated into GO sheets.