Preparation of Silver Nanopowder by Freeze-Drying Procedure

A freeze-drying procedure is developed for manufacturing silver nanopowder with regular shape and uniform diameter. The procedure includes four steps: preparing the precursor solution, freezing the solution, drying the congelation, and calcining the drying product. The starting substances are silver nitrate and caustic soda and the precursor is diammine silver solution. Three freezing styles including direct freezing, vacuum evaporation freezing, and spray freezing are adopted to freeze the precursor solution. In the drying stage, two heating styles for the frozen solution are compared. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy disperse spectroscopy (EDS) spectrograms show that the products of freeze drying are pure amorphous silver nanopowder without hard agglomerations. Silver cubic nanocrystals are subsequently obtained by calcination. The chemical fundamentals and the drying curves of freeze drying are given. The processes of preparing silver nanopowder are described in detail. The effect of freezing and heating on characteristics of the powder are discussed. The mechanism of grain forming and growing up is analyzed according to the observation results. The characteristics of powder freeze drying and its feasibility for volume production are presented.