Surfactant-assisted synthesis of double-wall Cu2O hollow spheres

A facile room temperature solution route has been developed to large scale synthesis of double-wall Cu2O hollow spheres with the assistance of surfactant CTAB. The HRTEM image indicates that the as-prepared double-walled Cu2O hollow spheres are composed of small nanocrystals through aggregating. The experiments confirm that the single-wall Cu2O hollow spheres formed in the initial stage and then the CTAB layer (even multilayer) formed on the surfaces of single-wall Cu2O hollow spheres play key roles for the formation of the double-wall Cu2O hollow spheres. A possible growth mechanism has been proposed to illustrate the formation of double-wall Cu2O hollow spheres.