The morphology-dependent catalytic activity of anisotropic silver nanoparticles

Abstract

Anisotropic silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were phototransformed from spherical seed nanoparticles using LEDs that emit at five different wavelengths, this allowed us to directly compare the effect of size and morphology in their catalytic activity, given that the surface chemistry is the same for this set of AgNPs. The AgNPs were characterized with UV–vis spectroscopy, SEM, dynamic light scattering and Z-potential, and were tested in the catalytic reduction of methylene blue. The reduction kinetics presented a pseudo-first order model for all samples, showing that the sample phototransformed with the 500 nm LEDs had the best catalytic performance.