A novel wet-chemical method of preparing highly monodispersed Cu2O nanoparticles

Highly monodispersed cuprous oxide (Cu2O) nanoparticles, which have a potential application in printed electronics, have been successfully synthesized by a simple wet-chemical route and have been characterized by XRD, HRTEM, UV–vis, and FTIR. The results have shown that the particle size can be controlled by changing the concentration of the stabilizing molecule—oleic acid. Cu2O nanoparticles are spherically shaped with a diameter of about 2 nm and form a face-centered cubic (FCC) crystal structure when the molar ratio of oleic acid to copper precursor is 2. It can be concluded that the Cu2O nanoparticles are capped with oleic acid and polyethylene glycol monododecyl ether. The nano-agglomeration can be filtrated and easily re-dispersed in apolar solvent without ultrasonic method or vigorous stirring.