Synthesis of CuO nano/micro-crystals with controlled dimensionality and morphology and their electrochemical properties

Abstract

In this paper, two-dimensional (2D) CuO microsheets and three-dimensional (3D) flower-like hierarchical microstructures have been successfully fabricated by using a tree-type multi-amine head surfactant C18N3 in aqueous solution. Morphology and dimensionality control of well-defined CuO microstructures could be achieved by simply adjusting the concentration of NaOH and C18N3. At standard conditions, 80 °C and 2 mM of C18N3, a series of microsheets were obtained by changing the concentration of NaOH. Meanwhile, if the temperature was kept at 80 °C with 0.5 M NaOH, as the concentration of C18N3 decreased from 1.8 mM to 0.8 mM, not only we successfully synthesized 3D CuO hierarchical microstructures, but we also observed a transformation process from 2D to 3D. Our work demonstrates the fabrication of 2D and 3D CuO hierarchical architectures through a one-step eco-friendly aqueous solution-phase chemical route under controlled conditions.