Hydrothermal route to twinned-hemisphere-like CuO architectures with selective adsorption performance

Twinned-hemisphere-like CuO architectures with sizes ranging from 2 to 2.5 mu m have been successfully prepared via a simple hydrophilic polymer-assisted hydrothermal route. The morphology of CuO is greatly affected by the mass ratio of Cu(CH3COO)(2)center dot H2O : PSS and the quantities of NaF. The different morphological products, such as spheres, twinned-hemispheres and sheets, have been obtained by changing the reaction conditions, which have been discussed in detail in this paper. The as-obtained products were characterized by SEM, XRD, FT-IR and BET. The adsorption capacity of the twinned-hemisphere product was detected by UV-vis spectroscopy. It was found that the as-obtained CuO twinned-hemispheres show high selectivity and short removal times to separate dyes from wastewater with a low cost and no secondary pollution.