Atmospheric-pressure microplasma as anode for rapid and simple electrochemical deposition of copper and cuprous oxide nanostructures

Abstract

There has been growing attention on plasma electrodes, as they are much cheaper than commonly used metal electrodes such as Pt and have renewable electrode interfaces. However, most research was mainly focused on plasma cathodes, while the research and application of plasma anodes has been rarely reported. In this paper, we applied an atmospheric-pressure microplasma as a gaseous anode for transferring positive charges and inducing electrochemical reactions in solution. Cu and Cu 2 O nanocrystals have been co-deposited on ITO cathodes in 100 mM CuSO 4 solution at room temperature.By simply changing the precursor concentration and reaction temperatures, pure Cu and Cu 2 O product could be prepared. Our work will expend the application area of plasma electrodes in electrochemistry and nanomaterials synthesis, and it is also a new rapid and simple electrochemical method for preparing copper and cuprous oxide nanostructures.

Ultra‐small CuO nanoparticles with tailored energy‐band diagram synthesized by a hybrid plasma‐liquid process

“…Despite much recent progress, many aspects that can lead to a description of this non‐equilibrium and complex interface are still under debate. Nonetheless, hybrid plasma‐liquid systems are producing important contributions to nanomaterial synthesis and surface treatment . In particular, hybrid plasma‐liquid approaches have been used to produce various Cu and Cu‐oxide nanostructures, often leading to mixed phases .…”

“…The size of the NPs is then determined by the local concentration of coalescing CuO. Absence and delays of oxidation through equation would otherwise cause the growth of larger size particles . We, therefore, believe that the small reaction volume close to the plasma‐liquid interface, where the concentration of solvated electrons is high, is responsible for the small size and narrow size distribution of the NPs.…”

“…Nonetheless, hybrid plasma-liquid systems are producing important contributions to nanomaterial synthesis and surface treatment. [31,33,47,50,[52][53][54][55][56][57] In particular, hybrid plasma-liquid approaches have been used to produce various Cu and Cu-oxide nanostructures, often leading to mixed phases. [39,54,58,59] In all these cases, the synthesis conditions have differed dramatically in terms of precursors, solution compositions, and plasma configurations/coupling.…”

“…Absence and delays of oxidation through equation (3) would otherwise cause the growth of larger size particles. [56] We, therefore, believe that the small reaction volume close to the plasma-liquid interface, where the concentration of solvated electrons is high, is responsible for the small size and narrow size distribution of the NPs. As reduction takes place in this small volume, NPs that are formed and oxidized here are prevented from growing or oxidizing any further as they move out of the "reaction volume" due to either diffusion or circulating currents imposed by the plasma gas flow.…”

Effects of a micro pattern on Cu alloy electrodeposition and its application as an oil detector

“…1a). According to previous research, the electrodeposited structures are composed of Cu and Cu 2 O [18,19]. Moreover, the EDS analysis results in Table 1 show that the formed dome-type structure consisted mainly of Cu.…”