Dissimilitude behaviour of Cu2O nano-octahedra and nano-cubes towards photo- and electrocatalytic activities

Abstract

We demonstrate how the morphology of a simple metal-oxide system (e.g., Cu₂O) controls catalytic activity. Cu₂O catalysts were synthesized with a highly uniform nanocube and nano-octahedra morphology under PVP surfactant-assisted reaction conditions. A series of structural, morphological, optical and electrical characterizations are done to optimize the growth of nanostructures with different morphologies. Finally, the nanostructures are exploited as photo- and electrocatalysts. Interestingly, we find dissimilitude behaviour of nano-octahedra and nano-cube samples towards photo and electrocatalytic activities. The nano-octahedra samples are ∼57% more photocatalytically active (half-life time_octahedra ∼ 10.7 minutes) than the nanocube samples, which is one of the highest reported photocatalytic efficiencies reported to date. However, the same nano-octahedra samples show lower electrocatalytic activity towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) as compared with the nanocube sample.