A facile synthesis of Cu(2)O/SiO(2) and Cu/SiO(2) core-shell octahedral nanocomposites.

We report here a simple approach to the synthesis of Cu(2)O/SiO(2) core-shell nanocomposites in water solution. The Cu(2)O cores have a perfect octahedral structure with uniform size of about 200-300 nm. A compact SiO(2) shell 9 nm in thickness is located at the surfaces of Cu(2)O octahedra, and it is composed of fine SiO(2) nanoparticles. During the depositing of the SiO(2) particles, as we presumed, dynamic absorbing and disengaging of Na(+) at the interface of Cu(2)O octahedra and the solution made it possible for the formation of Cu-O-Si bonds between core and shell in the composites. The existence of Cu-O-Si bonds in our core-shell composite can be substantiated by peak changes at 1236 and 1080 cm(-1) in the FT-IR spectra. This is the reason why the SiO(2) shell is so compact and uniform. Moreover, these Cu(2)O/SiO(2) core-shell octahedra were further used as precursors, depending on a simple disproportionation reaction of Cu(2)O in acid, to easily achieve Cu/SiO(2) movable multicore-shell octahedral nanocomposites. In the final Cu/SiO(2) core-shell composite, the thin SiO(2) octahedral shell was held, inside of which formed several free Cu nanoparticles 50-80 nm in size. Studies on the Cu(2)O/SiO(2) core-shell octahedral composites and Cu/SiO(2) movable multicore-shell octahedral nanocomposites would be a good thing not only for fundamental research but also for applications.