Hollow CuO nanospheres uniformly anchored on porous Si nanowires: preparation and their potential use as electrochemical sensors

Abstract

Hollow CuO nanospheres have been prepared via a reduction reaction of copper ions on porous Si nanowires combined with calcination in air and uniformly anchored on their surfaces. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to characterize and analyze as-synthesized samples. The results reveal that Si nanowires fabricated from heavily doped Si wafer are formed with a meso-porous structure by an Ag-assisted etching approach, and Cu nanoparticles are formed and uniformly decorated on the Si nanowires through a reaction of copper ions reduced by silicon. After annealing in air, Cu nanoparticles are in situ oxidized and transformed into CuO, leading to the formation of hollow nanospheres because of the Kirkendall effect. The diameter size of as-prepared CuO hollow spheres anchored on porous Si nanowires is mainly around 30 nm. Finally, in order to illuminate the advantages of this novel hybrid nanostructure of nanosized hollow spheres supported on porous nanowires, its electrochemical sensing performance to hydrazine as an example has been further investigated. The results confirm that it is a good potential application to detect hydrazine.

3D hierarchical walnut-like CuO nanostructures: Preparation, characterization and their efficient catalytic activity for CO oxidation

“…Electrochemical process [7], template method [8], microwave-activated approaches [9], nanosphere lithography [10,11] and electrospinning process [12] are widely used to synthesize MOSMs. With the development of nanotechnologies and synthesis routes, by tuning the materials with micro/nanostructures, the properties of MOSMs as well as their applications can be greatly expanded.…”

Highly exposed copper oxide supported on three-dimensional porous reduced graphene oxide for non-enzymatic detection of glucose

“…Yet, the noble metals also have some disadvantages including rapid deactivation, low selectivity as well as high cost, and poisoning of chloride ion [17], which greatly limit their applications in the analysis of practical samples. Copper oxide (CuO) as a typical p-type transition metal oxides with a narrow band gap of 1.2 eV has been studied widely in recent years due to its low cost, high specific capacitances, non-toxicity, and favorable pseudocapacitive characteristics [18][19][20]. Up to now, plenty of CuO nanostructures like CuO nanowires [21], CuO nanorods [22], flower-shaped CuO [23] have been used in determination of glucose and gained considerable achievements.…”

Facile synthesis of 3D CuO nanowire bundle and its excellent gas sensing and electrochemical sensing properties

“…A lot of works have been focused on developing highly sensitive and fast approaches for precise monitoring of glucose levels, especially electrochemical techniques [7][8][9][29][30][31][32][33]. CuO nanostructures are under a great deal of attention as glucose sensing materials because of their low cost, ease of synthesis, good stability, outstanding redox behavior and easily tunable structures [7][8][9][30][31][32][33].…”

“…Copper oxide is a well-known p-type semiconductor with a narrow band gap of 1.2 eV and has been extensively studied because of its versatile applications, such as catalysts [1], magnetic storage media [2], gas sensors [3][4][5], lithium batteries [6], amperometric sensors [7][8][9], etc. Because the practical performances of CuO nanomaterials are close related to its morphology and size, which ultimately depends on the preparation methods and reaction conditions [10,11], various methods have been developed to synthesize CuO nanostructures, for example, thermal oxidation of copper foil, hydrothermal route, vapor-liquid-solid synthesis, ultrasound irradiation, thermal decomposition of precursors, electron beam lithography, etc.…”