Controlled formation of Ag2S/Ag Janus nanoparticles using alkylamine as reductant surfactants

Exploiting the formation mechanism of multicomponent nanomaterials will enable the control of their components or morphologies to enhance their performance for a given application. Herein, we demonstrated a facile controlled synthetic approach to Ag2S/Ag janus nanoparticles through thermal decomposition of single-source precursor silver diethyldithiocarbamate, in which the formation of the heterodimers was determined by the reductant surfactant of octadecylamine. Only if the ratio of octadecylamine (ODA) and oleic acid (OA) was equal or larger than 2:1, this thermal decomposition resulted in the successful formation of janus Ag2S/Ag nanoparticles, which is different from the situation that less ODA led to the formation of Ag2S single component nanoparticles. Dynamic growth results also indicated that the Ag2S/Ag heterodimer structure formed in the nucleation stage. The as-prepared Ag2S/Ag Janus nanoparticles exhibited continuous adsorption window in UV-vis-NIR region and emitted NIR fluorescence at 980 nm. Meanwhile, these nanoparticles showed excellent catalytical degradation activity for methyl blue, which is promising for organic catalysis and pollutant removal application.