Novel cuprous oxide morphologies using amino acids and carboxylic acids as structure directing agents in a simple hydrothermal method

•Hydrothermal treatment of copper(II) complexes to Cu2O or Cu microcrystals.•Tuning copper phase and morphology by varying the surface-directors ligands.•N,O-type ligands (amino acids) show stronger reduction behavior than O,O-type ligands and produces Cu.•Citrate complexes leads to flower-like Cu2O octapods.•Oxalate as ligand leads to uniformly stepped Cu2O microcubes.