Preparation of Silver Nanoparticles by Exploding Wire in Different Liquids

Abstract

The present work, provides a simple technique for the production of silver nanoparticlesbased on the explosion of thin silver wires in different liquids (distilled water, ethylene glycol and cyclohexane),by applying 36 Volt DC to two electrodes, one of them is a thin wire and the other is a plate, and bring them to touch mechanically. The nanoparticles are characterized by X-ray diffraction and UV-Visible spectroscopy.X-ray diffraction results reveal that the nanoparticles continue to routine lattice periodicity at reduced particle sizes. The UV-Visible absorption spectrum of the liquid solution of the silver nanoparticles shows a sharp and single Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) peak centered at a wavelength around 400nm, this peak indicated the production of pure and spherical silver nanoparticles. The TEM and SEM images show that the silver nanoparticles have narrow particle size distribution ranged from 20-120nm with average particle size of 80nm. The silver nanoparticleswhich were prepared in water or ethylene glycol had no difference in their average particle size and particle size distribution, while those which were prepared in cyclohexane had smaller sizes.