Facile Fabrication of Cu₂O Nanobelts in Ethanol on Nanoporous Cu and their Photodegradation of Methyl Orange

Zhenhua Dan; Yulin Yang; Fengxiang Qin; Hao Wang; Hui Chang

doi:10.3390/ma11030446

Facile Fabrication of Cu₂O Nanobelts in Ethanol on Nanoporous Cu and their Photodegradation of Methyl Orange

Materials (Basel). 2018 Mar 19;11(3):446. doi: 10.3390/ma11030446.

Authors

Zhenhua Dan^{1

2}, Yulin Yang³, Fengxiang Qin⁴, Hao Wang⁵, Hui Chang^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Tech Institute for Advanced Materials and College of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 210009, China. zhenhuadan@njtech.edu.cn.
² The Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 210009, China. zhenhuadan@njtech.edu.cn.
³ Tech Institute for Advanced Materials and College of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 210009, China. dan9506@gmail.com.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China. fengxiangqin@njust.edu.cn.
⁵ Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Sendai 9808577, Japan. hao.wang@imr.tohoku.ac.jp.
⁶ Tech Institute for Advanced Materials and College of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 210009, China. ch2006@njtech.edu.cn.
⁷ The Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 210009, China. ch2006@njtech.edu.cn.

Abstract

Thin cupric oxide (Cu₂O) nanobelts with width of few tens of nanometers to few hundreds of nanometers were fabricated in anhydrous ethanol on nanoporous copper templates that was prepared via dealloying amorphous Ti₄₀Cu₆₀ ribbons in hydrofluoric acid solutions at 348 K. The Cu₂O octahedral particles preferentially form in the water, and nanobelts readily undergo the growth along the lengthwise and widthwise in the anhydrous ethanol. The ethanol molecules serve as stabilizing or capping reagents, and play a key role of the formation of two-dimensional Cu₂O nanobelts. Cu atoms at weak sites (i.e., twin boundary) on the nanoporous Cu ligaments are ionized to form Cu²⁺ cations, and then react with OH^- to form Cu₂O and H₂O. The two-dimensional growth of Cu₂O nanostructure is preferred in anhydrous ethanol due to the suppression of random growth of Cu₂O nanoarchitectures by ethanol. Cu₂O nanobelts have superior photodegradation performance of methyl orange, three times higher than nanoporous Cu.

Keywords: Azo dye degradation; Cu2O nanobelts; ethanol; photocatalysts; porous materials.