One-step synthesis of uniform silver nanoparticles capped by saturated decanoate: direct spray printing ink to form metallic silver films

Abstract

The one-step synthesis and spectroscopic characterizations of size-controlled silver nanoparticles are described. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermal gravimetric-mass analysis (TGA-MS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques were used to characterize the decanoate-protected silver nanoparticles. TEM analysis showed that spherical nanoclusters of 7.52 ± 0.57 nm were produced. Furthermore, the particle sizes are uniform with a narrow size distribution. For all samples, Ag 3d_5/2 and 3d_3/2 components appeared at 368.5 and 374.5 eV, respectively, in the XPS spectrum; these values compare very well with the typical values of carboxylate-protected Ag nanoparticles. A thermal analysis mass spectrometer was used to analyze the desorption behavior of decanoate-protected nanoparticles. From the desorption maximum temperatures of 181 and 263 °C, activation energies of 27.2 and 32.2 kcal mol⁻¹ for the desorption processes in the Ag MPCs were obtained, assuming a first-order reaction and using a pre-exponential factor of 1 × 10¹³ s⁻¹. A specific resistivity of 6.097 μΩ cm for the silver metal film (0.7 μm) on a Si wafer can be produced simply by thermal annealing of an Ag monolayer-protected clusters film under an atmosphere of 90% N₂–10% H₂ at 300 °C for 1 h.