the effect of polyvinylpyrrolidone on the formation of copper nanoplates in wet-chemical reduction method

in this work, we report synthesis and characterization of copper nanoparticles in polymer matrix by wet-chemical reduction method using ascorbic acid as reducing agent, copper (ii) sulfate as metal precursor and polyvinylpyrrolidone k-30 (pvp k-30) as surfactant agent. the reaction was carried out in a high-speed stirring mixture at room temperature under nitrogen atmosphere. characterization of the samples was carried by scanning electron microscopy (sem) and x-ray diffraction (xrd) analysis. the results indicated that, the molar ratio of precursor to surfactant plays a crucial role in the homogeneous growth of copper nanoparticles aggregates and the best condition for formation of homogeneous copper nanoparticles aggregates in polymer matrix was provided for a molar ratio of precursor to surfactant, cuso4.5h2o/pvp= 70/1 using ascorbic acid as reducing agent. the average particle size of zero valence cu nps calculated using scherrer's formula was about 7.9 nm.