Hydrothermal synthesis of three-dimensional hierarchical CuO butterfly-like architectures

Uniform 3D hierarchical CuO butterfly-like architectures were fabricated by a surfactant-assisted hydrothermal oriented attachment route. This route included the formation of CuO butterfly-like architectures in a solution of cupric chloride (CuCl2·2H2O) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) at 100 °C for 15 h by using sodium dodecyl benzenesulfonate (SDBS) as surfactant. The as-prepared CuO architecture was characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The CuO butterfly-like architectures, with lengths of about 6 μm and widths of 2-4 μm, were assembled from several tens of oriented attachment rhombic nanosheets with a thickness of about 60 nm. A growth mechanism for the formation of the CuO butterfly-like architectures was proposed on the basis of time-dependent experiments. The synthetic parameters such as reaction temperature, the concentration of sodium hydroxide and reaction time all affected the morphology of the CuO architectures. The synthetic strategy could be extended to assemble 3D architectures of other materials. KGaA, 2009.