Application of glucose as a green capping agent and reductant to fabricate CuI micro/nanostructures

•CuI nanostructures were prepared via a simple precipitation method.•Glucose as a green capping agent and reductant was applied.•The effect of glucose concentration on the morphology of CuI was investigated.•According to XRD results, pure cubic phase CuI have been formed by using glucose. In this work, CuI micro/nanostructures have been successfully prepared via a simple precipitation route at room temperature. By using glucose as a clean reducing agent with different concentrations, CuI micro/nanostructures with various morphologies were obtained. Besides glucose, Na2SO3, KBH4 and N2H4·H2O have been applied as reductant. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), photoluminescence spectroscopy, X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and Fourier transformed infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy were used to characterize the as-produced CuI micro/nanostructures. According to the XRD results, it was found that pure cubic phase CuI have been formed by using glucose.