A facile strategy for the synthesis of silver nanostructures with different morphologies

By the common seed-mediated growth method, the preparation of silver nanostructures with desired morphologies still remains a great challenge. In this paper, the same growth solution was used to prepare the desired anisotropic nanoparticles through different preparation procedures of silver seeds and nanoparticles. The citrate-capped silver seeds (common seeds) were confirmed to grow and aggregate to form silver nanorods in CTAB rod-like micelles by a common seed-mediated method (one-step growth). The interesting difference from the above method was that silver nanodisks were obtained by three-step growths of the seeds. Silver nanotriangles could be easily prepared with modified silver seeds that prepared by only changing the molar ratio of NaBH4 to silver precursor and other conditions were the same as those in the preparation of common silver seeds. Furthermore, the yield of silver nanotriangles had a marked increase by adding Cl− into the growth solution of silver nanotriangles. In addition, the silver seeds capped with BSPP gradually grew up to form irregular polygon-shaped nanodisks with clear multiple-twinned structure. The proposed strategies hold great potential to be extended in the preparation of silver and other metal nanoparticles with different shapes. [Display omitted] •A facile method to regulate the morphology of silver nanostructures.•The keys are the preparation of silver seeds, silver nanoparticles and additives.•Silver nanodisks were first prepared by three-step growths with the common seeds.•By changing the mole ratio of NaBH4 to AgNO3 to prepare silver nanotriangles.•The yield of silver nanotriangles had a marked increase by adding Cl−.