Study of Antifungal Activities of CuO/ZnO Nanocomposites Synthesized by Co-precipitation Method

In this work, series of CuO/ZnO functional nanocomposites were synthesized through co-precipitation method using CuCl2×H2O and ZnCl2 as starting materials with various molar ratio of copper:zinc, followed by annealing process at 600 °C for 2 hours to obtain CuO/ZnO nanocomposites. The structures of the composites were analyzed using X-ray diffraction and field emission scanning electron microscopy. For XRD result, diffraction peaks of the composites reveal the well-crystalline characteristic indicating the mixture phase of CuO and ZnO. SEM results show different morphologies of CuO, ZnO and Cu-Zn oxide nanocomposites appearing in quasi spherical structure.The composites were used for antifungal activity via agar disk diffusion method. It is found that the composite with certain ratio of Cu:Zn exhibits superiority in partial inhibition of strain AspergillusflavusTrichoderma comparing to either pure CuO or ZnO.

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