Facile Synthesis of High-concentration, Stable Aqueous Dispersions of Uniform Silver Nanoparticles Using Aniline as a Reductant

Abstract

A facile method was developed for preparing uniform silver nanoparticles with small particle sizes of less than 10 nm at high concentrations, in which aniline was used to reduce silver nitrate (AgNO3) to silver nanoparticles in the presence of dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid (DBSA) as a stabilizer. Upon the addition of excess NaOH to the DBSA−aniline−AgNO3 (DAA) system, the formation of silver nanoparticles was almost complete in just 2 min at 90 °C (in 94% yield). The average size of those resultant silver nanoparticles was 8.9 ± 1.1 nm, and the colloids were stable for more than 1 year at ambient temperature. A possible mechanism for the formation of silver nanoparticles was proposed to be related to two factors: one was the mesoscopic structures of the DAA system in which silver ions were restricted in the dispersed phases composed of DBSA and aniline; the other was Ag2O nanocrystallites generated in situ that could be readily reduced by aniline to small silver nanoparticles at high concentrations.