CUPROUS OXIDE POWDER AND METHOD OF PRODUCING SAME

摘要

A cuprous oxide powder with a particle diameter smaller than those found in the prior art, and a method of producing the cuprous oxide powder by the chemical reduction method are provided. This method of producing cuprous oxide powder involves adding an alkaline solution to a copper ion-containing solution (or adding a copper ion-containing solution to an alkaline solution) to generate copper hydroxide, and thereafter adding a reducing agent such as a reducing sugar to reduce and precipitate the cuprous oxide particles, wherein, before generating the copper hydroxide, divalent iron ions are added to the copper ion-containing solution in the amount of 0.00001-0.04 mols (10-40000ppm) relative to the amount of copper ions in the copper ion-containing solution, and a cuprous oxide powder containing 30ppm or more iron is produced which has a 0.5mum or lower average primary particle diameter measured by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a 0.8mum or lower 50% particle diameter (D50 diameter) calculated by a laser diffraction-type particle size distribution measurement.