Ultrasonic waves accelerate production process of silver nanocomposites

The researchers at Iran’s Amirkabir University of Technology managed to synthesize silver nanocomposites with higher quality and performance by means of an efficient, fast and novel method.

“Given the fact that the conventional methods of silver nanocomposites are time taking and non-economical in some cases, we used ultrasonic waves as an efficient fast novel method which offers better operational conditions and leads to the production of products with superior quality and performance,” Rouyeen Hallaj, a lecturer at Amirkabir University of Technology told the news service of INIC.

Materials which can be used as a base in the synthesis of silver nanocomposites include porous solids like silica, alumina, and zeolite.

These porous materials provide size control of silver particles due to owning super fine pores with very high volume inside surface area. Therefore, synthesis of silver nanoparticles on these bases increases their performance.

“First, we poured definite amounts of silver nitrate (as silver ion source) and silica (as base) into a balloon together with distilled water to prepare the primary solution. Then, the primary solution was exposed to argon gas flow and the balloon containing the primary solution was left in a cold waterbath to be cooled down during the chemical sonic treatment. After filtration and rinsing, the resulting nanocomposites dried before the analysis,” Hallaj said, elaborating on the procedure of silver nanocomposite synthesis.

Silver nanocomposites synthesized by ultrasonic waves consist of spherical particles with a diameter of 9-64 nanometers.