Facile synthesis of monodisperse thermally immiscible Ag-Ni alloy nanoparticles at room temperature

Ag and Ni are immiscible, mainly due to their large lattice mismatch. This paper reports on their nanoscale formation of solid solution at room temperature by simple reduction reactions which lead to the amorphous Ag-Ni alloy nanoparticles (ANPs) with mono-disperse distribution. Microscopic and spectroscopic studies confirmed dependence of the alloy composition on size of nanoparticles. In the presence of different ligands such as sodium citrate, polyvinyl alcohol and potassium carbonate a mixture of silver oxide and Ag-Ni ANPs was achieved. Stoichiometry of the Ag-Ni ANPs was also found to be strongly dependent on ligands of the reduction reaction and further study shows without any ligand 100% Ag-Ni ANPs was observed in the system. Using Tetrakis hydroxymethyl phosphonium chloride resulted in construction of near-uniform ANPs in the easily controllable conditions of the present alloying procedure. Nanoparticles having up to 65% Ni were observed for the first time in this research.