ABSTRACT
Nanomaterials research has been directed toward the synthesis of metal nanoparticles in order to explore their special properties and potential applications of metal nano-size particles [1-4]. Among various metal nanoparticles, copper nanoparticles have attracted considerable attention because of their superior electrical conducting properties when used in nanosize compared to the bulk size particles [5-8]. Colloid copper nanoparticles are found useful inpreparation of electronic circuits. Furthermore, because of their high electrical conductivity and chemical activity, Cu nanoparticles can replace Au and Ag in some potential applications such as conductive pastes and catalysts.Several methods have been developed for the preparation of copper nanoparticles, including thermal reduction [9,10], chemical reduction [11-13], sonochemical reduction [14], metal vapor synthesis [15], vacuum vapor deposition [16], radiation method [17,18], microemulsion techniques [19], and laser ablation [20]. Among these methods, the aqueous solution reduction method is the most widely employed, due to the advantages including high yield and quality of particles, simplicity of operation, limited equipment requirements, and ease of control.
