Review of Wet Chemical Syntheses of Copper Nanowires and Their Recent Applications

Copper nanowires (Cu NWs), a new type of functional material, have high commercial value in the fields of electronics and catalysis owing to their excellent conductivity, good mechanical properties, high activity, and low cost. In recent years, various applications of Cu NWs have yielded many significant results, which are rapidly developing toward industrialization. This paper reviews the recent progress in the syntheses and applications of Cu NWs. Several wet chemical synthetic methods and the recent commercially promising applications of Cu NWs in flexible transparent electrodes, three-dimensional networks for lithium-ion batteries, and catalysts are described in detail. Additionally, the limitations of Cu NWs and available strategies for technical difficulties are introduced, which can be useful for researchers in related scientific fields. For each application, representative literature reports are overviewed and a brief objective evaluation is presented. Finally, the prospects of Cu NWs for future applications in various technologies are proposed.