Convenient Route to Well-Dispersed Cu2O Nanospheres and Their Use as Photocatalysts.

A simple and facile method was developed to synthesize well-dispersed cuprous oxide nanospheres with uniform morphology and the size in the range of 400-600 nm. Cuprous oxide nanospheres were obtained through the chemical reduction of copper acetate by fructose in the presence of ethylene glycol and de-ionized water. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV-Vis spectroscopy (UV-Vis) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) as well as high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) were used to characterize the obtained nanoparticles. The influence of time, temperature and the solvent on the formation of cuprous oxide was investigated. The growth process of cuprous oxide was analyzed and the mechanism of crystal growth was proposed. The photocatalytic activity of degradation of methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation was also investigated. It was found that the product of cuprous oxide had efficient catalytic for degradation MO.