A multitude of chemical reduction methods have been
used to synthesize silver nanoparticles from silver salts. The
reactions considered here were limited to those using silver
nitrate as the starting material. They vary in the choice of
reducing agent, the relative quantities and concentrations of
reagents, temperature, duration of reaction, as well as the diameters
of the nanoparticles produced. In nearly all of them
the colloidal silver products are described as turbid and greenish-
yellow or brown (3–5). Yellow colloidal silver has been
reported upon reaction with ice-cold sodium borohydride (6)
and is the basis for the method used in the experiment described
next.
The synthetic