The effect of CuO concentration on the dc conductivity of ternary metal oxide nanocomposite

In this paper, we are studying the effect of different concentrations of CuO on the activation energy of ZnO/Ag₂O/CuO ternary metal oxide nanocomposites. X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and Raman spectroscopy were used to determine the structural and topographical features of the produced samples. XRD data indicates that crystalline size increases while crystalline % decreases as the concentration of CuO increases. A FESEM result shows that particle size increases as the CuO concentration increases in ternary metal oxides. Raman spectroscopy indicates that the peaks that are obtained are ZnO, Ag₂O and CuO peaks. In a dc conductivity measurement, we have seen that when we increase the concentration of CuO in ternary metal oxide, the activation energy increases. We have found that the less concentrated CuO in ternary metal oxides ZnO/Ag₂O/CuO which have low activation energies indicates that this may be a very stable catalyst with a high rate of activity. (author)