A facile synthesis of palladium encased Ag nanowires and its effect on fluorescence and catalysis

A facile polyol synthetic route was designed to prepare an ultra thin Pd nano sheath over Ag nanowires (NWs) forming metal-metal core–shell nanocomposites. Here we report the one pot synthesis of Pd assembly onto growing Ag NWs. Pd salts were reduced over varied time intervals during the growth process of the Ag NWs. The Pd salt was introduced after 20, 30- and 40-minutes to the growing Ag NWs. The product was designated as Ag@Pd 20, 30, and 40 on basis of introducing interval. The morphology and constituents of each product was observed using SEM coupled with EDX. XRD was employed to characterize composite material. UV-Visible was used to determine the SPR of each material along with the pure Ag NWs and palladium nanoparticles. Similarly, fluorescence of each product was characterized using PL spectrophotometer, which was correlated with core and sheath. Finally, the catalytic reduction of nitrophenol into amino phenol by ultra thin sheet of Pd of each product was investigated and reaction order was ascertained.