Synthesis of CuO samples by co-precipitation and green mediated combustion routes: Comparison of their structural, optical properties, photocatalytic, antibacterial, haemolytic and cytotoxic activities

Abstract The goal of this research is to prepare novel, inexpensive, environment friendly and efficient crystalline CuO samples by green mediated combustion and co-precipitation routes towards environmental remediation and biomedical applications. The influence of preparation routes and Aloe barbadensis miller (Aloe vera) gel on the morphology, size, crystallinity, band gap, defects, photocatalytic, antibacterial, haemolytic and anticancer behaviour of CuO samples were explored. The PXRD, XPS, SEM, TEM, HRTEM and FT-IR were performed to confirm the formation of CuO samples. FTIR studies showed all possible bands of Aloe barbadensis miller gel. FTIR displaying the occurrence of new peaks and peak shifts in the CuO synthesized by green mediated combustion route compared to co-precipitation route is an evidence of the effective interactions between CuO and Aloe vera gel. The PL and UV–Vis-DRS techniques measured the optical sensitivity and tuning of band gap of the CuO samples. The crystallinity and surface properties dependent photocatalytic activities for decolourization of MB and RhB under both UV and Sunlight irradiation were investigated. The results indicated that green mediated synthesized CuO sample displayed high photocatalytic activity compared with co-precipitation route synthesized CuO sample, which mainly resulted from the low crystallinity and crystallite size (6 nm), narrow band gap (1.73 eV) and lower recombination of charge carriers. These synthesized CuO samples also demonstrate excellent antibacterial activity against the bacteria Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli). The present study probes into the cytotoxicity of CuO samples employing root cells of Allium cepa. In addition, we report the haemolytic activity on goat and human blood along with the implementation of green synthesized CuO sample using an Aloe barbadensis miller extract for the evaluation of anticancer activity in human cervical cancer (HeLa) cells with IC50 value of 310.1 μg/ml. Our studies focus on developing biosynthesized nanomaterials for environmental remediation and biomedical applications.