title: Green "planting" nanostructured single crystal silver.
abstract: Design and fabrication of noble metal nanocrystals have attracted much attention due to their wide applications in catalysis, optical detection and biomedicine. However, it still remains a challenge to scale-up the production in a high-quality, low-cost and eco-friendly way. Here we show that single crystalline silver nanobelts grow abundantly on the surface of biomass-derived monolithic activated carbon (MAC), using [Ag(NH₃)₂]NO₃ aqueous solution only. By varying the [Ag(NH₃)₂]NO₃ concentration, silver nanoplates or nanoflowers can also be selectively obtained. The silver growth was illustrated using a galvanic-cell mechanism. The lowering of cell potential via using [Ag(NH₃)₂]⁺ precursor, together with the AgCl crystalline seed initiation, and the releasing of OH⁻ in the reaction process, create a stable environment for the self-compensatory growth of silver nanocrystals. Our work revealed the great versatility of a new type of template-directed galvanic-cell reaction for the controlled growth of noble metal nanocrystals.
authors.affiliation: College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yuesheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ning
authors.forename: Binyuan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Fujun
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.forename: Yijian
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: Junwei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Xiaobin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Tongxiang
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Jianguo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Di
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Keao
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hu