Abstract
Silver compounds share a rich history in technical applications including photography, catalysis, photocatalysis, cloud seeding and as antimicrobial agents. Here we present a class of silver compounds (Ag2B10H10 and Ag2B12H12) that are semiconductors with a bandgap at 2.3 eV in the green visible light spectrum. The silver boranes have extremely high ion conductivity and dynamic-anion facilitated Ag+ migration is suggested based on the structural model. The ion conductivity is enhanced more than two orders of magnitude at room temperature (up to 3.2 mS cm−1) by substitution with AgI to form new compounds. Furthermore, the closo-boranes show extremely fast silver nano-filament growth when excited by electrons during transmission electron microscope investigations. Ag nano-filaments can also be reabsorbed back into Ag2B12H12. These interesting properties demonstrate the multifunctionality of silver closo-boranes and open up avenues in a wide range of fields including photocatalysis, solid state ionics and nano-wire production.
Highlights
Silver compounds share a rich history in technical applications including photography, catalysis, photocatalysis, cloud seeding and as antimicrobial agents
The room temperature a-Ag2B10H10 polymorph crystallizes in a tetragonal unit cell in space group P4/nnc
This demonstrates dynamic-anion facilitated Ag þ migration, which can be described as a paddle-wheel mechanism for ion conduction if anion reorientation frequencies are found to match cation jump frequencies
Summary
Silver compounds share a rich history in technical applications including photography, catalysis, photocatalysis, cloud seeding and as antimicrobial agents. The silver boranes have extremely high ion conductivity and dynamic-anion facilitated Ag þ migration is suggested based on the structural model. The ion conductivity is enhanced more than two orders of magnitude at room temperature (up to 3.2 mS cm À 1) by substitution with AgI to form new compounds. Ag nano-filaments can be reabsorbed back into Ag2B12H12 These interesting properties demonstrate the multifunctionality of silver closo-boranes and open up avenues in a wide range of fields including photocatalysis, solid state ionics and nano-wire production. 3), which displays one of the highest room temperature solid-state ion conductivities[4]. 0N.0a12BS1c2mH1À2 have shown high ion 1 above a polymorphic transition temperature (T4110 °C), where the closo-borane anions undergo rapid dynamic motion and Na þ ions can move between partially occupied sites in the crystal structure[7,8,9]. Silver compounds tend to exhibit another interesting property, the formation of silver filaments, otherwise known as whiskers, capillaries, hair, moss, fibres, wires, spikes, clusters or filiforms
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