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Green Synthesis of Ag and Pd Nanospheres, Nanowires, and Nanorods Using Vitamin B2: Catalytic Polymerization of Aniline and Pyrrole

Written by: 
Xaiomu Wu, Ph.D.
Nadagouda et al. reported a simple, green synthetic approach of Ag and Pd nanospheres, nanowires, and nanorods using Vitamin B2 and investigated the catalytic activities of these nanomaterials.

Reviewed by Xiaomu Wu, Department of Chemistry, Columbia University

Pd nanorods (Nadagouda)
TEM image of palladium nanorods synthesized using vitamin B2 in acetone
Recently, noble metal nanostructures have attracted substantial interest due to their unique properties that arise from quantum confinement effects and interplay between surface and bulk effects. In particular, size and shape provide an effective strategy for tuning their physical and chemical properties, including luminescence, conductivity, and catalytic activity. Scientists have achieved excellent control over particle size for several spherical metal and semiconductor compositions, which has led to their use as probes for biological diagnostics, LED and Raman spectroscopy-enhancing materials. Yet the challenge of synthetically controlling particle shape remains open. Although some physical deposition, thermal, electrochemical and photochemical methods have been developed for making variously shaped semiconductor and metal nanoparticles, they usually yield relatively small quantities of the desired particle shape and are not eco-friendly. A recent paper by Nadagouda et al. reported a simple, high yield, green synthetic approach for production of Ag and Pd nanospheres, nanowires, and nanorods using Vitamin B2 at room temperature and investigated the catalytic activities of these nanomaterials.

Vitamin B2 was used as both reducing agent and stabilizing agent for its high-water solubility, biodegradability, and low-toxicity. The formation of noble multiple shape nanostructures and their self assembly were closely dependent on the solvent employed for the preparation. Ag and Pd nanoparticles are self-assemble into rod-like structure, wire-like structure, and nanorods when water, isopropanol, acetone (or acetonitrile) are used, respectively. In addition, they explored their ability to catalyze the polymerization of aniline and pyrrole to afford one-dimensional polyaniline and polypyrrole nanofibers, which may find wide applications in technological and biological industries.

This study focused on addressing mounting environmental concerns using Vitamin B2 as an alternative to harmful reducing agents, such as sodium borohydride (NaBH4) or any special capping agent. They described a single-step greener method in which high yield noble nanostructure multiple shapes and are formed with less toxic chemicals at room temperature. Chances are this idea can be extended to prepare other noble metals and transition metal oxides using nontoxic chemicals under benign conditions.

Image from Nadagouda, M.N. and R. S. Varma, " Green Synthesis of Ag and Pd Nanospheres, Nanowires, and Nanorods Using Vitamin B2: Catalytic Polymerisation of Aniline and Pyrrole," Journal of Nanomaterials, v2008 (2008) articleID 782358. All published articles are released under a "Creative Commons Attribution License," enabling the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction of an article in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.

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