Abstract
This work presents a thorough study on the early stage of copper electrodeposition from a choline chloride-urea deep eutectic solvent (DES). Determination of possible species in DES containing Cu2+ ions as the electrolytes has been performed using UV-Vis measurements. Kinetic and thermodynamic aspects of copper electrodeposition on glassy carbon electrode from DES were thoroughly investigated using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronoamperometry (CA). Both results from CA and CV have demonstrated that the copper electrodeposition could be performed directly from DES containing a small amount of water by the single potentiostatic step technique. Theoretical approach confirmed that the direct electronucleation of copper nanoparticles in the DES can be described by a model with two contributions, namely, (i) adsorption process and (ii) a three-dimensional (3D) nucleation and diffusion-controlled growth of copper nuclei, to the total current density transients. Kinetic parameters are important for controlling morphology and chemical composition of the obtained nanoparticles, which are verified by surface characterization techniques such as SEM and EDS.
Highlights
Copper nanoparticles (Cu-NPs) are of great interest for applications in many engineering fields, including electronics, energy, catalyst, environment, and agriculture, owing to their natural abundance, low cost, and diversity of preparation methods [1, 2]
In the near infrared (NIR) region, a broader peak between from 705 to 755 nm and a sharp peak at 1022 nm are detected, which can be due to the presence of [Cu(H2O)6]2+ species [26]
By means of the CA technique, it was possible to distinguish the electrochemical behavior of these processes, indicating that peak I corresponds to the reduction of intermediate species (Cu(II) to (Cu(I)), (1)); peak II corresponds to the formation of metallic copper from soluble species ((Cu(I)) to Cu(0), (2)), and peak III could be occurring simultaneously both reactions, namely, hydrogen evolution reaction of small amount of water containing in deep eutectic solvent (DES) and (2)
Summary
Copper nanoparticles (Cu-NPs) are of great interest for applications in many engineering fields, including electronics, energy, catalyst, environment, and agriculture, owing to their natural abundance, low cost, and diversity of preparation methods [1, 2]. Cu-NPs have shown important effect in regulating plant growth and development and increasing chlorophyll formation and seed production [7]. Due to their fungicidal and insecticidal activity against the pests of crop plants, they can be used as nano-pesticides, nano-herbicides, nano-fertilizers [8, 9], among others. These benign behaviors of Cu-NPs make the study on their synthesis a topic of current interest. The main concern is the fact that these methods are neither cost-effective nor eco-friendly due to the use of toxic
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