Preparation and characterization of nanocrystallite size cuprous oxide

Uniform spheres of nanocrystallite size cuprous oxide particles have been prepared by a simple polyol process using cupric nitrate as a precursor in ethylene glycol. As synthesized compound was dried at 333 K in a vacuum oven and characterized by XRD, FT-IR and SEM techniques. The crystallite size of the cuprous oxide calculated from Scherer's formula was found to be ∼11 nm.