Sea urchin-like CuO particles prepared using Cu3(PO4)2 flowers as precursor for high-performance ethanol sensing

Abstract

Cu3(PO4)2 flowers are reported for the first time as a solid precursor for the preparation of hierarchical CuO particles with sea urchin-like morphology in the absence of self-assembled templates or matrixes. In the alkaline condition, Cu3(PO4)2 transforms into Cu(OH)2 firstly, and then into CuO through dehydration at room temperature. Different from soluble Cu salt as precursor, the basic building blocks for CuO are continuously supplied in a controlled manner form Cu3(PO4)2 precursor, which ensures a nearly sustained supersaturated concentration that favors heterogeneous nucleation and progressive growth of sea urchin-like CuO particles. The gas sensing property of as-prepared sea urchin-like CuO particles to ethanol is investigated. The sea urchin-like CuO particles exhibit a good sensing performance in terms of high response, short response/recovery time, good selectivity, good reproducibility, and long-term stability. The facile strategy demonstrated here opens up a new strategy to fabricate hierarchical CuO particles with enormous potential from the perspective of practical application.