Ultrasound-assisted preparation, characterization and properties of porous Cu2O microcubes

Porous Cu2O microcubes have been successfully synthesized via an in situ ultrasound route at an ultrasound power of 90% for 3 h in the presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone ( PVP), employing CuCl2 center dot 2H(2)O, C6H12O6 center dot H2O, trisodium citrate and NaOH as starting reactants. The phase and morphology of the product were characterized by means of powder X-ray diffraction ( XRD), energy dispersive spectrometry ( EDS), transmission electron microscopy ( TEM), and field emission scanning electron microscopy ( SEM). The investigations showed that the as-prepared porous Cu2O microcubes possessed good electrochemical properties and could photocatalytically degrade organic dye pyronine B under irradiation with 254 nm UV light, and could obviously restrain the propagation of E. coli.