The Preparation Of Nano-Metal Oxide And Nano-Metal Materials

Cuprous oxide (Cu2O) nanocubes have successfully been prepared through a simple and facile method by exploiting Cu(ethyl acetoacetate)2 (Cu(EAC)2) and poly(ethyleneglycol) (PEG) in the absence of other chemicals. The PEG appears to act as both the reducing agent and stabilizer. The XRD results indicated that no metal Cu or CuO developed in the preparation process, and only Cu2O nanoparticles with the cuprous structure were produced. The TEM images revealed that all the Cu2O nanoparticles were cubic-shaped or square-shaped crystals. The concentrations of the Cu(II) precursor, reactant temperatures, and chain length of the PEG played the key role to the size and shape of Cu2O nanocubes. It is interesting that the reducing reactivity of PEG was sensitive to its chain length, and the reduction reaction activity was drastically dropped with the decreasing of polymer's chain length.By exploiting the same method, we prepared silver nanoparticles at different conditions. The particle size was dependent upon the reaction temperatures and the chain length of the PEG. The increase of temperature effected a shift of particle size range from 10 nm to 80 nm. In addition, a noticeable change of sphere to polyprism nano-silver was observed when the reaction temperature was elevated to 120℃. It is worth to note that the reduction reactivity of PEG is sensitive to its chain length, and the reduction reaction rate was drastically dropped with the decreasing of its polymer chain length.