Morphology-Controlled Fabrication of Large-Scale Dendritic Silver Nanostructures for Catalysis and SERS Applications

• Published in: Nanoscale research letters Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 89 - 7
• Main Authors: Cheng, Zi-Qiang, Li, Zhi-Wen, Xu, Jing-Han, Yao, Rui, Li, Zong-Lin, Liang, Shan, Cheng, Guang-Ling, Zhou, Yan-Hong, Luo, Xin, Zhong, Jiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 12.03.2019; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Catalysis; Catalysts; Catalytic activity; Chemistry and Materials Science; Dendrites; Dendritic silver nanostructures; Dendritic structure; Electrochemical deposition; Electrochemistry; Fabrication; Materials Science; Molecular Medicine; Morphology; Multilayers; Nano Express; Nanochemistry; Nanoparticles; Nanoscale Science and Technology; Nanostructure; Nanotechnology; Nanotechnology and Microengineering; Nitrophenol; Raman spectra; Silver; Stability; Substrates; Surface-enhanced Raman scattering; Electrochemical deposition; Dendritic silver nanostructures; Catalysis; Surface-enhanced Raman scattering
• ISSN: 1931-7573; 1556-276X
• DOI: 10.1186/s11671-019-2923-0

Highly branched metallic nanostructures, which possess a large amount of catalyst active sites and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) hot spots owing to their large surface areas, multi-level branches, corners, and edges, have shown potential in various applications including catalysis and SERS. In this study, well-defined dendritic silver (Ag) nanostructures were prepared by a facile and controllable electrochemical deposition strategy. The morphology of Ag nanostructures is controlled by regulating electrodeposition time and concentration of AgNO 3 in the electrolyte solution. Compared to conventional Ag nanoparticle films, dendritic Ag nanostructures exhibited larger SERS enhancement ascribed to the numerous hot spots exist in the nanogaps of parallel and vertically stacked multilayer Ag dendrites. In addition, the prepared dendritic Ag nanostructures show 3.2-fold higher catalytic activity towards the reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) by NaBH 4 than the Ag nanoparticle films. The results indicate that the dendritic Ag nanostructures represent a unique bifunctional nanostructure that serves as both efficient catalysts and excellent SERS substrates, which may be further employed as a nanoreactor for in situ investigation and real-time monitoring of catalytic reactions by SERS technique.