Effect of chloride ion on synthesis of silver nanoparticle using retrieved silver chloride as a precursor from the electronic scrap

Abstract Retrieving silver from available resources, especially the electronic scraps (E-scraps), is becoming more important due to increasing demand for electronic industry and rapid growth in disposal problems of the E-scraps. Although chemical leaching has been extensively employed to retrieve the silver, the purity issue still remains. In this work, the silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) with high purity are synthesized using the retrieved silver chloride (AgCl) from the E-scraps via chemical leaching and selective precipitation. These particles show an average diameter of 68 nm and narrow size distribution. The effect of Cl− ions on particles synthesis are also investigated, resulting in variation in shape and size of particles due to selective etching and slow growth rate.