Perpustakaan Digital ITB

Over the past few decades, one of the main focuses in materials science development is nanoparticles. The expansion and development of nanoscience and nanotechnology have stepped up by the desire of scientists to make a matter that has several advantages in various areas of medicine, agriculture, and environmental remediation. The study of copper nanoparticles (both in metallic copper and copper oxide) is economically attractive because copper is significantly more affordable than silver and gold. Also, the utilization of copper nanoparticles can substitute gold and silver nanoparticles in several fields, namely antimicrobial agents, agriculture, water treatment, potential energy storage, catalysts, and others. Recently, copper nanoparticles research is focused on the alternative fabrication process that concerns sustainability and environmentally-friendly processes. Due to the several limitations of conventional methods, the novelty, and eco-friendly concern, studies have been shifted toward biological synthesis and its possibility to produce copper nanoparticles. Researchers have conducted several experiments using biological agents: brown algae, microalgae, fungi, bacteria biomass, and plant (leaves, roots, fruits, flowers, and seeds) extracts. This thesis highlights the alternative methods (biological synthesis) of copper nanoparticles, includes the factors that affected the nanoparticles’ formation, the probable reduction mechanism, and their potential applications as antimicrobial (antifungal and antibacterial), and antiviral agents in the future. This thesis’ writing process began by looking for related papers and books containing the following keywords: nanotechnology, nanoscience, copper nanoparticles, and biological synthesis. The data and information sources are limited to the literature that only discusses the biological synthesis of copper nanoparticles. After that, the following process is reading, concluding literature sources, and writing the literature studies results. Based on the literature study, the probable reduction mechanism of copper nanoparticles using plant extracts starts from reducing precursors into copper nanoparticle clusters and nucleation of copper nanoparticles. Several biomolecules from plant extracts also play the role to encapsulate the copper nanoparticles to stabilize and avoid oxidation. The presence of natural surfactants from biomolecules would help to avoid aggregation. Several factors affect the synthesis process of copper nanoparticles assisted by plant extracts: pH, precursor concentration, reaction time, and operating temperature. Also, copper nanoparticles are effective to be antimicrobial (antifungal, and antibacterial), and antiviral agents against several pathogens such as E. coli, Salmonella sp., P. vulgaris, Streptococcus sp., Rhizobium sp., Klebsiella sp., L. monocytogenes, dengue vector A. aegypti and avulavirus (Newcastle Virus Disease).