Volume 65, Issue 1, 2021

Journal of Scientific Research

Institute of Science,
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.

Green Synthesis of Copper Nanoparticles and

its Characterization
Ayona Jayadev* and Neethu Krishnan B

Department of Environmental Sciences, All Saints’ College, Thiruvananthapuram, India.

ayona.evs@allsaintscollege.ac.in*, neethukb15@gmail.com

Abstract: The green nanotechnology is generating interest in synthesized including their density, crystal structure and the
researchers for the synthesis of nanoparticle in a simple, cost presence of surface contaminants, (Karakoti et al., 2013). The
effective, less toxic and ecofriendly manner. The present study chemically synthesized nanoparticles, also called engineered
reports the biosynthesis of copper nanoparticle using the leaf nanomaterials (ENM) in case if used for biological applications,
extract of Ocimum sanctum. The color change in the Ocimum leaf
there is a chance of generation of toxicity. Release of these
extract when copper sulphate solution is added indicates the
presence of copper nanoparticle. The effect of temperature and
particles to the environment should also be done with caution.
time of incubation on the biosynthesis of Cu NP were noted. The Karakoti et al., (2013) have noticed that very small changes in
characterization of the biosynthesized copper nanoparticle was room temperature during synthesis as well as during storage may
done by UV Vis spectrophotometer, Fourier transform infrared lead to unpredictable as well as non-reproducible properties in
spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD). nanoparticles.
Ecofriendly technologies for production of nanoparticles were
Index Terms: Copper nanoparticles, Cu NP, Nanoparticle, X-ray given special attention due to the aforementioned facts. The
Diffraction, XRD, FTIR, UV-Vis spectroscopy objectives were to produce environmentally benign and nontoxic
nanoparticles using green synthesis and biotechnological tools,
I. INTRODUCTION
(Joerger et al., 2000; Chauhan et al., 2012). The advantage of
Nanoparticles (NPs) are ultra-small units in the size range of 1 green synthesis of nanoparticles over their chemical synthesis
to 100 nanometers. Because they are very small, they are highly are due to the fact that the nanoparticles prepared are with
mobile and also chemically active because of the increased diverse nature, greater stability and appropriate dimensions and
surface area due to its small size. It is also known that the they are synthesized using a one-step procedure. The undesired
molecules and atoms in metals or non-metals in nano range conditions during chemical synthesis are eliminated and
show drastic change from the parent bulk material. Due to these conditions like physiological temperatures, pH, pressure are only
characters they have so many practical applications in various used in green synthesis with biological components acting as
fields such as medicine, industry, environmental remediation etc. reducing and capping agents and that too at a negligible cost
They have the ability to limit potentially toxic metal (Ingale and Chaudhari, 2013; Noorjahan et al., 2015).
concentrations. The interaction of nanoparticles with various Copper nanoparticles find application in industries, medicine,
materials is very much different from the corresponding metal of electronics etc. due to the peculiar properties like high electrical
greater size range. The production of nanoparticles is increasing conductivity, low electrochemical migration behavior high
steadily because of the prospectus applications. Last decade has melting point and after all its low cost. There are reports
seen a substantial increase in the nanoparticles production of (Tanilvanan et al., 2014) to show that copper nanoparticles can
about 25 fold between 2005 and 2010 (PEN 2013). be used as alternatives for noble metals such as in inkjet
But chemical synthesis of nanoparticles is reported to have printing, for organic transformations, gas phase catalysis,
several problems. Studies have shown that preparation of some photocatalysis and electrocatalysis, (Gawande et al., 2016).
nanoparticles need thermal processing. And this processing may Since Cu-nanoparticles have biomedical applications, the
alter the physicochemical properties of the nanoparticles solvent, stabilizing agent as well as reducing agent used for its
synthesis should be non-toxic. This signifies the biosynthesis of
*
Corresponding Author
Cu-nanoparticles which is a bottom-up method of nanoparticle

DOI: 10.37398/JSR.2021.650111 80
 Journal of Scientific Research, Volume 65, Issue 1, 2021

synthesis. figure 1, we can see that as time increases, the concentration of

Realizing the significant applications of Copper nanoparticles Cu NP increases and reaches a plateau at 600 minutes. From Fi1
in the above mentioned fields and also the problems associated and Fig.2 we can also see that as the time of incubation
with the chemical synthesis of the said nanoparticles, this study increases, the quantity of nanoparticles synthesized also
was undertaken with the objective to biosynthesize Copper increases and reaches a plateau. In the current study, the effect of
nanoparticle using the extract of Oscimum sanctum (which is temperature on Cu NP synthesis was also noted and seen that the
used as a source of bioreduction and stabilizers) and to synthesis is temperature dependent and maximum synthesis
characterize the particles synthesized using techniques like UV- occurs at 80°C.
VIS spectrophotometer, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy
(FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD).

I. EXPERIMENTAL
A. Preparation of Leaf Extract
For the synthesis of copper nanoparticles Ocimum sanctum
leaves were used. About 50 g of leaf was collected, washed
thoroughly in distilled water, cut into small pieces and added Plate 1 Visual observation of a) leaf extracts b) copper sulphate solution
c) Copper nanoparticle solution d) Copper nanoparticle
about 50 mL of double distilled water into it. It was heated in
water bath for about 10-15 minutes at 80⁰C. The resultant extract
was filtered using Whatman filter paper no1 and stored in
refrigerator for further use.
B. Synthesis of copper nanoparticles
For nanoparticle synthesis, about 25mL of Ocimum sanctum
leaf extract was added to 100 mL of 1mM copper sulphate
solution in a 250 mL conical flask. The solution was incubated Fig. 1& 2: Contour plot and matrix plot showing concentration of Cu
for a period of 10 hours. Three replica were placed each at three NP synthesized in relation to time
different temperatures (27°C, 40°C and 80°C). The solution thus Cu NP production at different temperatures

obtained was centrifuged at 12000 RPM for 15 minutes. The 80

Concentration (mg/L)

resultant pellet was washed with distilled water and the copper 70
nanoparticles are dried at hot air oven at 80⁰C. Concentration of 60
Cu nanoparticles obtained at three different temperatures and at 50 27°C
different time intervals were also determined. 40 40°C
30
C. Characterization of Nanoparticles 80°C
20
Characterization techniques help us to understand the specific 10
properties of the nanocrystals studied in an accurate manner 0
which is reliable to understand the measured values. The 60 240 480 600
synthesized nanoparticles were subjected to various Time (minutes)
characterization studies to understand the specific properties Fig. 3: Effect of temperature on Cu NP synthesis
such as optical, structural, morphological, elemental B. Characterization of Nanoparticles
composition, particle size and functional groups studies. The 1) UV – Vis Spectrophotometer
characterization of green synthesized nanoparticle was done by The synthesis of copper nanoparticle was first confirmed by
using UV-VIS spectrophotometer, Fourier transform infrared UV-Vis spectrophotometer (Fig 4). UV- visible spectral analyses
spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). of copper nanoparticles was done to characterize the Cu NP
formed at a range of 350nm to 700nm.The maximum absorption
II. RESULT AND D ISCUSSION can be seen at a range between 550nm and 600nm at about
560nm. The broadening of peak indicates that the particles are
A. Biosynthesis of Cu nanoparticles
poly-dispersed. Nanoparticles of metals have free electrons
The color of the leaf extracts changes from light brown color
(Ananthalekshmi et al., 2016). The mutual vibration of these
to dark green after adding copper sulphate solution (Plate 1.).
electrons gives rise to a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and in
The color change indicates the formation of copper
turn an absorption band. The figure shows peak characteristic of
nanoparticles. The Ocimum leaf extract can reduce the copper
SPR of Cu NPs. It was also found that the peak value gradually
ions into the copper nanoparticles within 12 hours. From the
decrease with the increase in the particle size. This is because of

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 Journal of Scientific Research, Volume 65, Issue 1, 2021

the fact that as the particle size increases, the particles becomes high crystalline nature which corresponds the diffraction angle at
opaque (Goh et al., 2014). It is found that the spectrophotometric 18⁰, 28⁰, and 32⁰. The average side of Cu Nps was calculated
analysis is sensitive to the detection of larger particles or using Debye – Scherrer equation.
aggregates of small particles (Nakamur et al., 2013). D = kλ / β Cosθ
Where D is the Crystalline size of Nanoparticles, k is the
Scherrer’s constant ranges from 0.9. The size of the Cu NP in
the extract was found to be 11 nm.

Fig. 6 XRD analysis of copper nanoparticle

Fig 4: UV-visible absorption spectroscopy analyses of copper
Nanoparticles. CONCLUSION
2) FTIR Spectroscopy From the above results we can able to conclude that, Ocimum
FTIR analysis is done to determine to find the possible sanctum extract can synthesis copper nanoparticle in an easy,
biomolecules in the Ocimum sanctum extract and the functional less toxic, ecofriendly and cost effective manner. In this study
group or the organic compounds which are responsible for the very less amount of chemicals were used for the synthesis of
synthesis of copper nanoparticles. The FTIR analysis is done at a copper nanoparticle and hence it is a green technology. The
range between the 4000 to 500 nm. The peak can be seen at characterization of copper nanoparticle was done by UV-Visible
3799 cm-1, 3141cm-1, 1581cm-1,1405cm-1, 1245cm-1, 1044cm-1, spectrophotometer, FTIR, XRD analysis. The synthesized Cu
854cm-1, 805 cm-1. The peak at 3799 cm-1 indicates OH group, NP will be used for further analysis of bioactivities they possess.
3141cm-1 indicates the carboxylic acid group, 1581cm-1 indicates Further studies are required using SEM for the structure analysis
amine group, 1405cm-1 shows the presence of alkanes, 1245cm-1 of synthesized copper nanoparticles and a comparison in
indicates alkyl ketone group, 1044cm-1 indicates C-O group, structure and properties of nanoparticles synthesized at various
854cm-1 indicates CH2, 805 cm-1 indicates the aromatic temperatures.
compound. This indicates that functional group plays a major
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