Halide-Salt-Free Synthesis of Silver Nanowires with High Yield and Purity for Transparent Conductive Films

Huaming Mao; Jie Chen; Linlin He; Zhengyang Fan; Yu Ren; Jungang Yin; Wei Dai; Hongwei Yang

doi:10.1021/acsomega.2c07164

Halide-Salt-Free Synthesis of Silver Nanowires with High Yield and Purity for Transparent Conductive Films

ACS Omega. 2023 Feb 14;8(8):7607-7614. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.2c07164. eCollection 2023 Feb 28.

Authors

Huaming Mao¹, Jie Chen¹, Linlin He¹, Zhengyang Fan¹, Yu Ren¹, Jungang Yin¹, Wei Dai¹, Hongwei Yang¹

Affiliation

¹ State Key Laboratory of Advance Technologies for Comprehensive Utilization of Precious Metals, Kunming Institute of Precious Metals, Kunming 650106, China.

Abstract

To date, silver nanowires (AgNWs) are routinely synthesized. However, the controllable preparation of AgNWs without any halide salts has not reached a similar level. In particular, the halide-salt-free polyol synthesis of AgNWs commonly occurs above 413 K, and the property of AgNWs obtained is not so easy to control. In this study, a facile synthesis of AgNWs with a yield of up to ∼90% in an average length of 75 μm was successfully performed without any halide salts. The fabricated AgNW transparent conductive films (TCFs) show a transmittance of 81.7% (92.3% for the AgNW network only without substrate) at a sheet resistance of 12.25 Ω/square. In addition, the AgNW films show distinguished mechanical properties. More importantly, the reaction mechanism for AgNWs was briefly discussed, and the importance of reaction temperature, the mass ratio of poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP)/AgNO₃, and the atmosphere was emphasized. This knowledge will help enhance the reproducibility and scalability of polyol synthesis of high-quality AgNWs.