Facile one-pot preparation of silver nanowires using an alcohol ionic liquid

Abstract

Silver nanowires have attracted considerable attention in the past decade, due to their unique physical and chemical properties, which can lead to a wide variety of potential applications. In this work, silver nanowires have been fabricated using an alcohol ionic liquid by a one-step method in the absence of any extra capping agents. The method is based on the reduction of AgNO₃ by 1-(3-hydroxylpropyl)-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (C₃OHmimBF₄) in an aqueous solution at 180°C for 18h. The products were characterized by a scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectrograph (EDS), and powder X-ray diffractometry (XRD). The experimental results indicate that both reaction temperature and special properties of C₃OHmimBF₄ play important roles in the formation of silver nanowires.

Keywords

silver nanowires / ionic liquid / nanomaterials

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the University Science Foundation of Anhui Province (Grant No. KJ2010B424), the University Science Foundation for Young Scientists of Anhui Province (Grant No. 2010SQRL141), and the Applied Chemistry Key Subject of Anhui Province (Grant No. 200802187C).

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg