Scalable synthesis and application of mono-dispersed hierarchical silver micro-particles

Hierarchical metals with abundant nanostructures are expected to provide excellent performance characteristics in electronic printing or packaging, catalysis, molecular detection, sensing, and microfluidic flow control, due to the inherent fascinating properties of metal framework (e.g. superior electrical conductivity, catalytic activities, optical properties, etc.) and the general characteristics of hierarchical materials. Yet it is still great challenging to synthesize hierarchical metals with controllable morphologies and nanostructures in large-scale via a facile synthetic method. Here we demonstrate a one-step method to fabricate mono-dispersed hierarchical silver micro-particles with tailored size and morphology in high yields. The silver micro-particles can be obtained merely by mixing the silver salts, reducing agents and surfactants simultaneously. Controllable morphologies and nanostructures can be realized simply by adjusting the reaction parameters, such as the concentration of reactants, mixing velocity, reaction temperature, and so forth. These silver micro-particles possess unique hierarchical structures with abundant nano-sized structures and uniformly distributed mesopores, which provide excellent low-temperature sintering ability and strong electromagnetic field enhancement effect. The facile and efficient synthetic method, along with such intriguing characteristics, renders the silver micro-particles with considerable interest in a wide variety of applications in future electronic devices.