Direct growth of silver nanostructures on zinc substrate by a modified galvanic displacement reaction

This paper reports a modified galvanic displacement approach for the synthesis of Ag nanostructures with different morphologies. During the process, AgNO3 as starting material is reduced using zinc foil and this is followed by suitable thermal treatment. The reaction time, concentration of the AgNO3 aqueous solutions and thermal treatment temperature directly influence the morphologies of Ag nanostructures. X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), and UV–visible spectra are used to characterize the products obtained. Furthermore, a representative experiment using rhodamine (R6G) as the probe molecule confirms that the Ag nanostructure shows strong surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity.