Solvothermal Growth of Flower-Like Morphology from Nanorods of Copper Sulfides

Abstract

The present work reports the effect of reaction time on solvothermal synthesis of copper sulfides from CuCl2·2H2O and thiourea with various compositions and morphologies using ethylenediamine as solvent at 120 °C. X-ray diffraction patterns of the products at different durations shows the development of different stoichiometric composition of copper sulfides in where Cu:S ratio increases from 1.39 to 1.79 indicating transformation of Cu39S28 to Cu7S4. As inferred by EDX and XPS studies of the final products. SEM shows the growth of bundles of nanorods of length ≈1 μm and diameter in nanometer range are observed after 6 h. On increasing the reaction duration to 9 h, nanorods tends to combines with each other and growth occurs in six directions and after 12 h leads to the formation of flower-like morphology of copper sulfide. The optical properties of these products also have been studied.