Abstract:
To study a production of silver powder using glycerol and sodium hydroxide mixed with glycerol as reducing agents. Unground silver sulfate as starting material , has an average size of 5.03 micron and ground silver sulfate produced by ball milling for the period of 25 hrs has the final average size of 0.97 micron. Testing temperatures for silver sulfate reduced with glycerol varied at 100, 125 and 150°C for 2 hours and stirred the solution of 500 rpm. Whereas reduced silver sulfate by glycerol with sodium hydroxide was performed at temperatures of 30, 50, 100 and 150°C for 2 hours. The solution mol ratio between silver sulfate and sodium hydroxide is kept at 1:2 with constant stirring the solution of 500 rpm. The results show that increasing in temperature increases silver powder size. By using glycerol as reducing agent, the average particle size of silver powder was 0.06-0.51 micron. Nucleation of silver powder occurred on silver sulfate’s surface. In addition XRD result shows incompletely reduction and thus silver sulfate still retains. After adding NaOH , silver sulfate can be able to reduce at low temperature (30°C). The shapes of silver powder looked like brain or coral. The average particle size of silver powder was about 0.09-2.01 micron. The reduction process involved with the use of sodium hydroxide together with glycerol can be able to apply in the production of silver foam by using sugar as space holder. This can be achieved because silver powder from this process provides high surface areas.