Comparative Photocatalytic Properties of Cu2O from Octahedron to Sphere Structures

Cu2O, a p-type semiconductor, has broad potential applications, especially as a visible-light photocatalyst. This paper presents a simple water-bath reflux to prepare Cu2O micro/nanoparticles. The morphology evolution from intact octahedrons to surface-pitted spheres was obtained by adjusting reducing agent and additive. Reflectance spectra show similar photo-absorption intensity and the same range from 250 nm to 650 nm. However, they perform different photocatalytic activity. Intact octahedron has the best photodegradation ability and next is vertex-and edge-damaged octahedron, the lowest for vertex-free polyhedrons and surface-pitted spheres. The enhanced photocatalytic activity for intact octahedrons should to be attributed to its surface characteristics of high index. Our study not only provides a simple method for controllable preparation of Cu2O micro/nanoparticles with different morphologies but also confirms the effect of morphologies on photocatalytic activity.