Fabrication of CuO nanotubes by electrospinning, metallisation and annealing

A straightforward combined technology of electrostatic spinning and metallisation was developed to produce novel metallic nanotubes and nanofibres. The metals were deposited onto electrospun poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) nanofibres as a template by metallisation method. After removal of the nanofibre template by heat treatment at 400°C for 24 h, the fibrous morphologies were satisfactorily conserved, suggesting the successful deposition of metal layer on the surface of nanofibre template. Wide-angle X-ray diffraction data confirmed that the PVA nanofibres metallised with the copper layer of 200 nm clearly showed typical copper crystalline peaks, whereas after calcination of the nanofibre templates, interestingly, new crystalline peaks were observed at 2θ = 32.5°, 35.5°, 38.7°, 48.7°, 53.4° and 58.4°, corresponding to the (1 1 0), (0 0 2), (1 1 1), (0 2), (0 2 0) and (2 0 2) reflections, respectively. The resulting metallic nanotubes and nanofibres were found to show a typical CuO crystalline structure.