Transport and Kinetic Effects on the Morphology of Silver Nanoparticles in a Millifluidic System

This work investigates the synthesis of silver nanoparticles of different shapes using silver nitrate as a precursor and ascorbic acid as a reducing agent in different reactors. The main focus of this work is to study the effect of capping agent concentrations and ratios of reducing agent to precursor concentrations (reactant ratios) on the shape and size of the nanoparticles synthesized. Three reactor configurations, namely, batch, straight millichannel, and spiral millichannel, are considered to study the transport effect on the morphology of silver nanoparticles synthesized. The kinetic effect on the particle morphology is studied by changing the capping agent concentrations and reactant ratios. It is shown that these variables play an important role in determining the nanoparticle shape and size. In this work, spherical nanoparticles (30-60 nm), triangular plates (80-200 nm), nanorods (130-150 nm), and bent wires (130-150 nm) morphologies are synthesized by controlling thermodynamic and kinetic parameters.