Green chemistry approach for the synthesis of CuO nanostructure

Molecular sieves MCM-41 were synthesized from rice husk ash (RHA) as alternative sources of silica. The material was synthesized by a room temperature method from a gel with the molar composition SiO2: 1.6EA: 0.215HDTMABr: 325H2O with pH correction. The cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTMABr) was used as a structure template. Nanocomposite containing 5.0 and 10.0 wt.% of Cu was synthesized under solid state reaction. The calcinations of samples were done at two different temperatures, 400 and 600◦C. The morphology and the physicochemical properties of the prepared samples were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–Vis DRS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). TEM images indicated that nanoparticles size of CuO is ~ 3 nm.