Room temperature additive-free synthesis of uniform Cu2O nanocubes with tunable size from 20 nm to 500 nm and photocatalytic property

• Uniform Cu2O nanocubes were synthesized by a room temperature additive-free process.
• The size of the nanocube can be tuned continuously from 20 nm to 500 nm.
• The photocatalytic property was studied.
• The Cu2O nanocubes exhibit good photocatalytic property for methyl orange.

Uniform Cu2O nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized through a facile additive-free aqueous solution route at room temperature. The structure and morphology of the products were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that the products were Cu2O nanocubes of 110–130 nm in side length. The size of the nanocubes can be tuned from 20 nm to 500 nm by changing the concentration of the sodium hydroxide solution and the kind of copper salts. The visible-light photocatalytic properties of the as-obtained Cu2O products were investigated. The results showed that these Cu2O nanoparticles exhibited good photocatalytic activity towards methyl orange (MO).