Abstract
Solvents are widely used in crystallization, but their effects on the shape development of crystals are under debate. Here, we report a view on how solvents play their role by considering the viscosity of solvents. We synthesize silver particles in a mixture of alcohol and water. The viscosity of the solvent is changed by varying the volume ratio of alcohol in water. With the variation of viscosity, diverse morphologies of silver particles are synthesized. Small cubic crystals are formed at low viscosity, while hierarchical flower-like particles are formed at high viscosity. Two alcohols are employed, namely ethanol and propanol. No matter which alcohol is employed, the results are similar. Due to the limitation of mass transfer at high viscosity, the particles synthesized in such solvent are smaller and stabilized by the solvent. When the solution containing these particles are dropped onto metal substrates, these tiny particles firstly aggregate, which is followed by classic crystallization, forming flower-like hierarchical structures. These findings show the importance of the viscosity of solvents in shaping particles, which is underestimated previously.
Highlights
Diverse shapes of particles have various properties in catalysis [1,2,3], electronics [4,5,6,7] and molecular sensing [8,9,10], which is impressive when considering the carbon family, including carbon nanotubes, graphene, diamond, and so on
The smooth surface of the small crystals indicates that selective deposition or surface reconstructing took place during crystallization, suggesting that the growth of small crystals was more likely to follow the classic layer-wise growth scenario, while the polycrystalline features of hierarchical structures indicates a different growth scenario
This paper paperinvestigated investigated of chemical diffusion the development shape development of silver
Summary
Diverse shapes of particles have various properties in catalysis [1,2,3], electronics [4,5,6,7] and molecular sensing [8,9,10], which is impressive when considering the carbon family, including carbon nanotubes, graphene, diamond, and so on. Different approaches have been developed to control the shape of particles, including templating methods [12,13] and kinetic controlling methods [14,15]. When particles are synthesized in solution, the solvent is inevitable. The solvents include hydrophilic (such as water and ethanol) and hydrophobic chemicals (such as tetrachloromethane and bromobenzene). The effect of solvents on the structural evolution of particles has been widely investigated [16,17]. We show a different view of the solvent effect in shaping particles from the perspective of chemical engineering
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