Synthesis of high purity silver nanowires through a silver chloride-mediated polyol method

High purity silver nanowires (AgNWs) have received a lot of attention from researchers in the field of conductive materials. Conventional polyol synthesis method of AgNWs inevitably leads to the formation of byproduct such as silver nanoparticles. These silver nanoparticles weaken the performance of AgNWs-based flexible displays and must be cleaned up by the purification steps. In this article, we reported a facile and simple method for the synthesis of high purity AgNWs with aspect ratio over 1500 by a one-pot polyol method using silver chloride (AgCl) suspension as nucleating agents via a heterogeneous nucleation mechanism. The process of AgNWs formation was revealed by characterizing UV–vis absorption spectra at different reaction steps, then the process of AgNWs growth from nucleating agents was hypothesized. The reaction temperature and the amounts of AgCl suspension were discussed to investigate their effect on morphology of AgNWs. The high purity silver nanowires prepared via this way are ideal materials for flexible transparent conductive films and will be widely used in flexible displays, solar cells and sensors.