Facile synthesis of silver chloride nanocubes and their derivatives

Abstract

We demonstrate a facile route to synthesize silver chloride nanocubes and derivative nanomaterials. For the synthesis of silver chloride nanocubes, silver nitrate and hydrochloric acid were used as precursors in ethylene glycol, and poly (vinyl pyrrolidone) as a surfactant. Molar ratio of the two precursors greatly influenced the morphology and composition of the final products. As-synthesized silver chloride nanocubes showed size-dependent optical properties in the visible region of light, which is likely due to a small amount of silver clusters formed on the surface of silver chloride nanocubes. Moreover, we show for the first time that simple reduction of silver chloride nanocubes with different reducing reagents leads to the formation of delicate nanostructures such as cube-shaped silver-nanoparticle aggregates, and silver chloride nanocubes with truncated corners and with silver-nanograin decorated corners. Additionally, we quantitatively investigated for the first time the evolution of silver chloride nanocubes to silver chloride nanocubes decorated with silver nanoparticles upon exposure to e-beam. Our novel and facile synthesis of silver chloride related nanoparticles with delicately controlled morphologies could be an important basis for fabricating efficient photocatalysts and antibacterial materials.