A New Approach to the Synthesis of Micron-Sized Single-Crystal Silver Plates

This article describes a novel, non-solvothermal, "citrate-free" method for synthesizing micron-sized, single-crystal silver plates. Transparent hexagonal and truncated triangular single-crystals, mainly enclosed by silver {111} planes, are synthesized by directly adding Iron (II) sulfate heptahydrate solution into silver nitrate solution with appropriate sulfuric acid at an agitation speed of 150 rpm at 8 °C. The mean edge lengths of them range from 4 μm to 16 μm. It is found that the high concentration of silver nitrate and low concentration of Iron (II) sulfate heptahydrate are favorable for the formation of thin silver plates. There was an optimum amount of sulfuric acid and reaction temperature for the preparation of single-crystal silver plates using this method. Sulfuric acid plays an important role in the formation of regular geometric-shaped silver plates. Especially, H ions play the key roles in silver plates to form regular shapes.