Agarose and gellan as morphology-directing agents for the preparation of selenium nanowires in water

Commercially available polysaccharides, agarose and gellan, were used as morphology-directing agents for the synthesis of t-Se nanowires in water at room temperature in the presence of ascorbic acid as reducing agent. The nanostructures were characterized using XRD, SEM, and TEM. The diameter of the nanowires varied from 100 to 208 nm for nanowires obtained in the presence of agarose and from 51 to 145 nm for nanowires from gellan, as evidenced by SEM and TEM. Agarose and gellan have then a potential as environmentally acceptable morphology-directing agents to generate Se nanostructures in water.