Cu2O and Au/Cu2O particles: surface properties and applications in glucose sensing

In this work we investigated the surface and facet-dependent catalytic properties of metal oxide particles as well as noble metal/metal oxide heterogeneous structures, with cuprous oxide (Cu(2)O) and Au/Cu(2)O being selected as model systems. As an example of application, we explored the potential of these materials in developing electrocatalytic devices. Cu(2)O particles were synthesized in various shapes, then used for testing their morphology-dependent electrochemical properties applied to the detection of glucose. While we did not attempt to obtain the best detection limit reported to date, the octahedral and hexapod Cu(2)O particles showed reasonable detection limits of 0.51 and 0.60 mM, respectively, which are physiologically relevant concentrations. However, detection limit seems to be less affected by particle shapes than sensitivity. Heterogeneous systems where Au NPs were deposited on the surface of Cu(2)O particles were also tested with similar results in terms of the effect of surface orientation.