Investigating the role of electrode material and CTAB protective concentration in the synthesis of copper nanoparticles by electrochemical method

Nano copper powder is prepared by various methods, which can be mentioned as chemical regeneration, evaporation-deposition, plasma, chemical mechanical, electric explosion, electrolytic deposition and liquid metal atomization methods. Among these, the electrolytic method is more ideal due to the simplicity of the process, low energy consumption, high efficiency, easy control, and low environmental pollution. In this research, the role of electrode material and protective concentration in the electrochemical synthesis of copper nanoparticles was investigated.

constant current density and temperature equal to 0.04 A/cm2 and 50 C° and the distance between cathode and anode 2.5 cm were considered as research constants. Research variables included copper, gold, steel and rubidium cathode electrodes as well as CTAB protective concentration

. The results showed that smaller crystals can be obtained with copper and gold cathodes. XRD analysis showed that the best purity of copper nanoparticles is obtained by copper cathode. SEM results showed that the gold cathode leads to the formation of spherical and non-cubic particles; and the copper cathode caused the formation of cubic particles. By increasing the amount of CTAB, the purity of copper increased and the growth of copper nanoparticles was effectively prevented. The crystallinity index is more than one and the copper metal is polycrystalline.