Crystal-facet-controllable synthesis of Cu2O microcrystals, shape evolution and their comparative photocatalytic activity

Single crystal Cu 2 O materials with morphologies of cube, truncated cube, truncated octahedron, octahedron etc. have been synthesized by a facile glucose reduction method. Polyvinylpyrrolidone concentration dependent, crystal-facet-controllable growth mechanism of the synthesized Cu 2 O crystals has been proposed in the article. The photocatalytic test results show that the octahedral Cu 2 O crystals with dominant {111} planes have super photocatalytic activity than the cubic ones packaged by {100} surfaces, which could be explained by that the polar, highly active {111} facets with unsaturated “Cu” have more excellent activity on the methyl orange dye degradation. This article will contribute to promote the morphology construction and crystal-dependent catalytic properties of metal oxide semiconductor materials.