Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are bimetallic hydroxides that currently attract considerable attention as co-catalysts in photoelectrochemical (PEC) systems in view of water splitting under solar light. A wide spectrum of LDHs can be easily prepared on demand by tuning their chemical composition and structural morphology. We describe here the electrochemical growth of NiFe-LDH overlayers on C...

Nanoparticulate surfaces possessing antimicrobial and fungicidal properties under visible light illumination have found wide applications in a number of fields. In this study, titania nanotubes, as well as titania compact films were designed with pure Cu2O crystals in a mildly acidic copper acetate solution using a simple alternating current (AC) deposition approach. In this way, the thermally ...

In most studies describing the preparation of Cu2O crystals of various morphologies, the particle sizes are normally hundreds of nanometers to micrometers due to rapid particle growth, so they are not exactly nanocrystals. Here we report surfactant-free formation of sub-100 nm Cu2O nanocrystals with systematic shape evolution from cubic to octahedral structures by preparing an aqueous mixture o...

Cu/Cu2O composite structures have been discovered to show sizable ferromagnetism (FM) with the potential applications in spintronic devices. To date, there is no consensus on the FM origin in Cu/Cu2O systems. Here, first principles calculations are performed on the interface structure to explore the microscopic mechanism of the FM. It is found that only the Cu vacancy (V(Cu)) adjacent to the ou...

Objective(s): In this study, a new copper precursor was prepared from the combination of Cu(CH3COO)2∙H2O (1 g in 5 ml of methanol) and benzoic acid (1 g in 5 ml of methanol) at room temperature. Following that, the copper precursor was calcined at the temperature of 500ºC and 600ºC for 1.5 hours to form CuO/Cu2O nanocomposites with the code numbers of CuO-1 and CuO-2, respectively. Materi...

L-Cys-modified Fe3O4 was first prepared by a one-step partially-reduced method under mild conditions. Then, novel pine cone-like Fe3O4@Cu2O/Cu nanocomposites (NCs) with photomagnetic difunction were successfully synthesized via a one-pot solvothermal method on Fe3O4 without any additional linker or reducer. The average diameter of the as-synthesized products was about 4 μm, and the products wer...

The oxidation of copper catalysts during ethylene epoxidation was characterized using in situ photoemission spectroscopy and electron microscopy. Gas chromatography, proton-transfer reaction mass spectrometry and electron-ionization mass spectrometry were used to characterize the catalytic properties of the oxidized copper. We find that copper corrodes during epoxidation in a 1 : 1 mixture of o...

For the first time, one-pot solution-phase selective-etching to create cuboctahedral Cu2O crystals enclosed by both stepped {111} surfaces and smooth {100} surfaces has been demonstrated. Investigation of photocatalytic performances indicates that the stepped cuboctahedral Cu2O crystals have higher photocatalytic activities than those of the common smooth ones.

Novel etched Cu2O cubes with exposed {110} facets are synthesized via an oxidative etching method at room temperature. The photocatalytic performance indicates that these architectures show higher photocatalytic activity than that of the normal Cu2O cubes in the degradation of methylene orange.

Multifaceted Cu2O with controlled crystal facet exposure was synthesized via a facile one-step method. It was found that photogenerated electrons prefer to accumulate on high index planes, while holes tend to migrate to {100} facets of a Cu2O polyhedron, leading to efficient charge separation and enhanced photocatalytic reforming of glucose.