Seeded Growth of Au@CuxO Core-Shell Mesoporous Nanospheres and Their Photocatalytic Properties

Gongguo Zhang; Yanyun Ma; Feng Liu; Zhibo Tong; Jingquan Sha; Wenjun Zhao; Maochang Liu; Yiqun Zheng

doi:10.3389/fchem.2021.671220

Seeded Growth of Au@Cu_xO Core-Shell Mesoporous Nanospheres and Their Photocatalytic Properties

Front Chem. 2021 Apr 23:9:671220. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2021.671220. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Gongguo Zhang¹, Yanyun Ma², Feng Liu³, Zhibo Tong¹, Jingquan Sha¹, Wenjun Zhao¹, Maochang Liu³, Yiqun Zheng¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Jining University, Qufu, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials & Devices, Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
³ International Research Center for Renewable Energy, National Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.

Abstract

We report a facile synthesis of Au@Cu_xO core-shell mesoporous nanospheres with tunable size in the aqueous phase via seeded growth. The success of the current work relies on the use of a halide-free copper (Cu) precursor and n-oleyl-1,3-propanediamine as a capping agent to facilitate the formation of a copperish oxide shell with a mesoporous structure and the presence of mixed oxidation states of Cu. By varying the amount of spherical Au seeds while keeping other parameters unchanged, their diameters could be readily tuned without noticeable change in morphology. As compared with commercial Cu₂O, the as-prepared Au@Cu_xO core-shell mesoporous nanospheres exhibit the higher adsorption ability, enhanced activity, and excellent stability toward photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation, indicating their potential applications in water treatment.

Keywords: copper; mesoporous; nanocrystal; photocatalytic degradation; seeded growth.