Facile Synthesis, Shape Evolution, and Photocatalytic Activity of Truncated Cuprous Oxide Octahedron Microcrystals with Hollows

Microcrystals of cuprous oxide (Cu2O) samples exhibiting different morphologies such as rods, hexapods, octahedra, and truncated octahedra with hollows were synthesized via a facile hydrothermal method and were then characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It was observed that the reaction time had a prominent effect on the aforementioned morphologies. The crystal growth processes have been proposed. Furthermore, the photocatalytic activities of the prepared Cu2O microcrystals were investigated by UV-vis spectrophotometry, demonstrating that their behavior was influenced by the different morphologies, and the truncated octahedra with hollow microcrystals possessed the highest activity.