A Study on Gamma Irradiation Synthesis of Copper Nanoparticles

A study on the effect of gamma radiation dose and dose rate on the yield of copper nanoparticles produced had been done. Its objective is to show the relationship between the absorbed doses with the yield of production. The copper sulphate solution is prepared with addition of ethanol as radical scavenger. Then the solution is bubbled with nitrogen for before being irradiated at different absorbed dose and dose rate. There are five different dose rates being used in this experiment. Atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) was used to detect directly the quantity of copper nanoparticles produced. The AAS results show positive linear relationship between the yields of copper nanoparticles with increasing absorbed dose. Yield of production show independency with dose rate at every absorbed dose. AAS result is supported with UV-Vis analysis data on the supernatant from irradiated products. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) confirms the existence of copper nanoparticles in all samples that being irradiated at absorbed dose of 100 kGy. The size of nanoparticles is range from 2 to 10 nm. Peak from the XRD analysis show the existence of pure copper.