Ternary Metal (Cu-Ni-Zn) Oxide Nanocomposite via an Environmentally Friendly Route

Jahanzeb Khan; Saiqa Bibi; Irsa Naseem; Shakeel Ahmed; Muhammad Hafeez; Khalil Ahmed; Faizah Altaf; Davoud Dastan; Asad Syed; Majid S Jabir; Mustafa K A Mohammed; Lin Tao

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c01896

Ternary Metal (Cu-Ni-Zn) Oxide Nanocomposite via an Environmentally Friendly Route

ACS Omega. 2023 Jun 2;8(23):21032-21041. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c01896. eCollection 2023 Jun 13.

Authors

Jahanzeb Khan^{1

2}, Saiqa Bibi², Irsa Naseem², Shakeel Ahmed³, Muhammad Hafeez², Khalil Ahmed¹, Faizah Altaf⁴, Davoud Dastan⁵, Asad Syed⁶, Majid S Jabir⁷, Mustafa K A Mohammed⁸, Lin Tao⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Mirpur University of Science and Technology (MUST), Mirpur, Azad Kashmir 10250, Pakistan.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir 13100, Pakistan.
³ College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, P. R. China.
⁴ Department of Environmental Sciences, Women University of Azad Kashmir, Bagh 12500, Pakistan.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14850, United States.
⁶ Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. 2455, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
⁷ Department of Applied Sciences, University of Technology-Iraq, 10011 Baghdad, Iraq.
⁸ College of Remote Sensing and Geophysics, Al-Karkh University of Science, Al-Karkh Side, Haifa St. Hamada Palace, Baghdad 10011, Iraq.
⁹ School of Chemical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Liaoning, Anshan, Liaoning CN 114051, P. R. China.

Abstract

In this work, we report the engineering of sub-30 nm nanocomposites of CuO/ZnO/NiO by using Dodonaea viscosa leaf extract. Zinc sulfate, nickel chloride, and copper sulfate were used as salt precursors, and isopropyl alcohol and water were used as solvents. The growth of nanocomposites was investigated by varying the concentrations of precursors and surfactants at pH 12. The as-prepared composites were characterized by XRD analysis and found to have CuO (monoclinic), ZnO (hexagonal primitive), and NiO (cubic) phases with an average size of 29 nm. FTIR analysis was performed to investigate the mode of fundamental bonding vibrations of the as-prepared nanocomposites. The vibrations of the prepared CuO/ZnO/NiO nanocomposite were detected at 760 and 628 cm^-1, respectively. The optical bandgap energy of the CuO/NiO/ZnO nanocomposite was 3.08 eV. Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy was performed to calculate the band gap by the Tauc approach. Antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of the synthesized CuO/NiO/ZnO nanocomposite were investigated. It was found that the antimicrobial activity of the synthesized nanocomposite increases with an increase in the concentration. The antioxidant activity of the synthesized nanocomposite was examined by using both ABTS and DPPH assays. The obtained results show an IC₅₀ value of 0.110 for the synthesized nanocomposite compared to DPPH and ABTS (0.512), which is smaller than that of ascorbic acid (IC₅₀ = 1.047). Such a low IC₅₀ value ensures that the antioxidant potential of the nanocomposite is higher than that of ascorbic acid, which in turn shows their excellent antioxidant activity against both DPPH and ABTS.