Synthesis and characterization of silver nanoparticles by chemical reduction method

Nanoparticles, compared to micro particles have distinctly different properties and advanced characteristics. Silver nanoparticles are one of the metal nanoparticles which has varied and different properties when compared to other material. Silver nanoparticles have received considerable attention due to their attractive physical and chemical properties, Especially suitable for sensor applications, while there are different methods for synthesis of silver nanoparticles, the most popular preparation of Ag nanoparticles is by chemical reduction. Silver nitrate is taken as the metal precursor and sodium borohydride as a reducing agent. This preparation is simple, but the great care must be exercised to make stable particles. Here silver nanoparticles are synthesized by the chemical reduction of silver nitrate. These silver nanoparticles are characterized by the different techniques like UV-Vis spectroscopy for the structural characterization, SEM to know the size morphology and composition of nanoparticles, XRD to know the lattice parameters. The UV-Vis spectroscopy revealed the formation of silver nanoparticles by exhibiting the typical surface Plasmon absorption maxima at a wavelength of 420nm as observed. From the UV Vis spectrum the agglomerated grain diameter size is estimated around 60 nm. The peaks in the XRD pattern are in good agreement with the standard values of the face-centered-cubic form of metallic silver (ICCD-JCPDS card no.04-0783) and no peaks of other impurity crystalline phrases are detected. The energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) of the nanoparticles dispersion confirms the presence of elemental silver in nanoscale.