Sonochemical synthesis of silver vanadium oxide micro/nanorods: Solvent and surfactant effects

In this investigation, a facile sonochemical route has been developed for the preparation of silver vanadium oxide (SVO) micro/nanorods by using silver salicylate and ammonium metavanadate as silver and vanadate precursor, respectively. Here, silver salicylate, [Ag(HSal)], is introduced as a new silver precursor to fabricate AgVO3 nanorods. The effect of numerous solvents and surfactants on the morphology and sonochemical formation mechanism of AgVO3 nanorods was studied. AgVO3 nanorods were characterized by SEM and TEM images, XRD patterns, FT-IR, XPS, and EDS spectroscopy. SEM, TEM, and XRD results showed that Ago nanoparticles were formed onto AgVO3 nanorods in the presence of ethanol, cyclohexanol, dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), and acetone. By using polyethylene glycol (PEG-6000) and N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) as organic additives, the thickness of AgVO3 nanorods decreased. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.