Preparation of Monodispersed Copper Nanoparticles by an Environmentally Friendly Chemical Reduction

In this paper, highly dispersive nanosized copper particles with a mean particle size of less than 6 nm are prepared by an environmentally friendly chemical reduction method. Non‐toxic L ‐ascorbic acid acts as both reducing agent and antioxidant in ethylene glycol in the absence of any other capping agent. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is used to characterize the size and morphology of Cu nanoparticles. The results of UV‐Vis spectroscopy (UV‐Vis), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and high resolution TEM (HRTEM) illustrate that the resultant product is pure Cu nanocrystals. The size of Cu nanoparticles is remarkably impacted by the order of reagent addition, and the investigation reveals the reaction procedure of Cu 2+ ions and L ‐ascorbic acid.