Quantifying the Driving Force of Silver Crystallization by Chemical Potential Difference

The growth of materials is directly driven by the interface environment, where mass and energy transfer occurs. To some extent, the heterogeneous interface determines the diversity of material structures. Owing to the nanoscale and time dependence of the interface environment, it is a challenging issue to describe the interface quantitatively. Here, we propose to use chemical potential difference (Δμ) to quantify the interface environment in the synthesis of silver particles. Silver particles are synthesized by an electrodeposition approach at the interface of electrodes. The interface chemical distribution, which is regulated by the reaction rate, diffusion rate, and forced convection, is quantified by the chemical potential difference. It is found that the morphologies of silver particles are closely dependent on the chemical potential difference. At a low chemical potential difference, polyhedron-like silver particles form. A high chemical potential difference leads to the formation of silver dendrites, and an extremely high value switches the growth domination to nucleation domination, forming silver nanoparticles. This study shows that the chemical potential difference is a valuable factor to quantify the interface environment, which may be used to discover the significance of the interface in energy and mass transfer.