Formation of well-defined Cu2S dendrites on TEM grids from sulfur/CS2 under ambient conditions

The Cu2S dendrites were formed on TEM grids from elemental sulfur (S) in CS2 solution by one day's ageing under ambient conditions and became denser with ageing. The shape and structures were stable in air for at least a month. If S/ethanol solution was dropped on Cu grid, uniform Cu2S nanowires were produced one day later, which could only be obtained by one week's ageing when using S/ethanol suspension as source in our previous work. The influence of the sulfur dispersion and concentration in several kinds of solvent on the growth and structures of Cu2S was discussed based on electron microscopic observation. This simple synthesis method from elemental reactants without any additives was useful for studying formation mechanism of hierarchical nanostructures, and more importantly, it was environmentally friendly. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.