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Aqueous Spray Pyrolysis of Cu 2 O Films: Influence of Reducing Agent and Acetic Acid Addition
Author(s) -
Plankensteiner Nina,
Kautek Wolfgang,
Dimopoulos Theodoros
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
chemnanomat
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.947
H-Index - 32
ISSN - 2199-692X
DOI - 10.1002/cnma.202000006
Subject(s) - acetic acid , aqueous solution , reducing agent , copper , pyrolysis , decomposition , materials science , oxide , inorganic chemistry , chemical engineering , sorbitol , nuclear chemistry , chemistry , organic chemistry , metallurgy , engineering
Cu 2 O is attractive as abundant and low‐cost material for energy‐related applications. This study investigated the versatile spray pyrolysis of Cu 2 O films from aqueous solutions. The appropriate deposition temperature and amount of copper acetate in the sprayed precursor solution was determined in order to eliminate unwanted copper oxide phases. It was shown that the addition of a reducing agent containing primary/secondary OH‐groups with suitable decomposition properties is necessary in order to obtain copper in the +I oxidation state. The influence of the pH value, determined by the addition of acetic acid to solutions containing varying reducing agents, on the structural film properties, was investigated. D‐sorbitol is for the first time proposed as suitable reducing agent to obtain compact and thick (ca. 500 nm) Cu 2 O films with an optical band gap of 2.3 eV.