Water based simple synthesis of re-dispersible silver nano-particles

Successful experiments with tri-sodium citrate as initial surfactant-cum-reducing agent followed by a secondary reducing agent i.e. sodium formaldehyde sulphoxylate (SFS) to silver nitrate were performed which established a clear large-scale method for the preparation of silver nano-powder of particle size of less than 50 nm. The citrate ions also create hydrophilic capping to in-situ generated zero-valent silver, thus leading to surfactant capped particles. Partial re-dispersion of such nano-powder in aqueous medium leads to colloidal silver which can be loaded in water friendly polymers such as polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP). UV–Visible absorption band at about 275 and 400 nm of colloidal silver in water can be retained even after loading in polymer. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of the colloidal solution showed a particle of the size < 30 nm. Particle size distribution by dynamic light scattering technique (DLS) showed that the particles are in the range of 10–40 nm. The elemental composition was studied by energy dispersive analysis of X-rays (EDS).