The effect of additive chemicals on synthesis of bismuth nanoparticles

Abstract

Bismuth nanostructures are of interest due to unique properties such as strong diamagnetism, high magnetoresistance under magnetic field, as well as biocompatibility compared with lead. Previous study have reported a relationship of obtained nanostructures and synthesized conditions including pH, temperature and time during nucleation. Most of them confront difficulties on size controlling, particularly in large volume synthesis. Therefore, the goal of this work is to simplify the synthesis method by studying an effect of additive chemicals which are introduced to a growth solution before nanocrystal formation. Ascorbic acid, dioctyl sulfosuccinate sodium salt (AOT) and ethanol were chosen to slow down the reaction or disturb the micellar template. The study has shown that size of nanoparticles can be easily tuned by adding different amount of aforementioned chemicals. According to different role in nanocrystal forming mechanism, more ascorbic acid tends to increase diameter of obtained particles. Oppositely, more AOT has shrunk synthesized particles due to packed micelles. Loose micelles are found in ethanol experiment leading to bigger particles in size. In addition, crystalline structure exhibited the diffraction plane at (012), (104), and (110) with X-Ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) was used to determine morphology of nanoparticles, and also size distribution was confirmed by nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA). We also found the quench of nanocrystal formation in the presence of high concentration of ethyl alcohol.