Ecologically friendly production of copper powder and elimination of cupric ions from aqueous solutions using D-Glucose and ascorbic acid

Abstract

Copper(II) ions (Cu2+) in copper sulfate solutions (CuSO4) can be reduced with several carbohydrates to produce copper metal powder. In this study glucose was used as a reducing agent. The big challenge in this study was to find the optimum conditions for copper ions reduction because they were entwined with positive conditions for degradation and hydrolyses of sugar (D-glucose). For that reason, the impact of several parameters on these conditions was investigated in a series of experiments in this research study. The glucose concentration (0.2-1.6M), the temperature (30-70 °C), initial sodium hydroxide concentration (0.2-0.4M), the role of adding sulfuric acid (H2SO4) at different volumes (0.6-3 mL) and the addition of ascorbic acid at different doses (4-20 mL) were the considered key parameters that were studied in this research. The synthesis of copper was restricted due to organic acid build up and reactions of the degradation products and copper. Under optimum conditions using glucose as a reducing agent, maximum of 48% of copper ions were transformed to copper metal (Cu). By adding ascorbic acid at the end of the experiment process, reduction efficiency was 100% where total and complete copper reduction was achievable. Most of solid particles were analyzed and the characterization and nature of the produced solid was achieved by X-Ray Diffraction.