Coordination-induced formation of nanometer-scale infinite coordination polymer at room temperature and conversion to CuO nanoparticles

In this work, the construction of CuO nanoparticles semiconductor utilizing infinite coordination polymers (ICPs) as precursor was investigated. After successful functionalization of salpn (salpn = N,N′-Bis(salicylidene)-1,3-propanediamine) ligand with sodium thioglycolate, bi-thioglycolate functionalized salpn linker was obtained, which was further transformed into Cu-ICP nanoparticles by simple precipitation method in the presence of Cu²⁺ cations. The mechanism of morphology evolution was illustrated by systematic time dependent studies, which demonstrated the preparation of Cu-ICP nanoparticles in shortest possible time, 5 min. Photoluminescence spectra show the emission quenching of the bi-thioglycolate functionalized salpn linker due to coordination to copper ion. In addition, the copper oxide nanoparticles are fabricated by thermal decomposition of the Cu-ICP precursor which showed larger band gap compared to bulk counterpart. (paper)