Fabrication of silver nanoparticles in a continuous flow, low temperature microwave-assisted polyol process

The performed experiments showed that continuous microwave-assisted polyol synthesis at about 70 °C is a viable process to give silver nanoparticles with a narrow size distribution in bulk amounts. The increase of silver precursor concentration in reaction system from 0.0097 to 0.0389 M resulted in the formation of fine nanoparticles 5-10 nm in size, in addition to the larger ones 30-100 nm, and that changed the pattern of particle size distribution from monomodal to bimodal. The effect of specific process variables was found to be the same in the continuous process as in batch operation. An aqueous glycerol solution was found suitable for use as both solvent and reducing agent.