Fabrication of diverse CuO nanostructures via hydrothermal method and their photocatalytic properties

Abstract

The purpose of this paper systematically investigates the influences of synthetic strategy on the copper oxide (CuO) nanostructures with disparate copper sources. In this work, the mild hydrothermal method is employed to synthesize the CuO nanostructures with the various sources of copper. The structure and performance of CuO nanostructures are characterized by XRD, FESEM, UV–Vis and photodecomposition test. The XRD pattern shows that synthesized CuO sample has high crystallinity with monoclinic crystal structure. According to FESEM figures, CuO nanostructures have different morphology and agglomeration. The growth process of CuO nanostructures prepared with various copper sources is discussed in detail. It is noteworthy that the photo-degradation rate of CuO nanostructures prepared with CuCl2·2H2O as copper source can reach up to 88.1 %. Experimental results obviously demonstrate the different optical property in the CuO nanostructures between Cu(CH3COO)2·H2O, Cu(NO3)2·3H2O and CuCl2·2H2O as copper source. These researches do a favor for understanding of copper source playing a remarkable role in synthesizing CuO nanostructures.