Room temperature synthesis and high temperature frictional study of silver vanadatenanorods

Abstract

We report the room temperature (RT) synthesis of silver vanadate nanorods (consisting of mainlyβ-AgV O3) by a simple wet chemical route and their frictional study at high temperatures (HT). Thesudden mixing of ammonium vanadate with silver nitrate solution under constant magneticstirring resulted in a pale yellow coloured precipitate. Structural/microstructuralcharacterization of the precipitate through x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electronmicroscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed the high yield andhomogeneous formation of silver vanadate nanorods. The length of the nanorods was 20–40 µm and the thickness 100–600 nm. The pH variation with respect to time was thoroughlystudied to understand the formation mechanism of the silver vanadate nanorods.This synthesis process neither demands HT, surfactants nor long reaction time.The silver vanadate nanomaterial showed good lubrication behaviour at HT (700 °C) and the friction coefficient was between 0.2 and 0.3. HT-XRD revealed thatAgV O3 completely transformed into silver vanadium oxide (Ag2V4O11) and silver with an increase in temperature from RT to700 °C.