A Facile Synthesis of Silver-Coated Composite Particles by Swelling Surface Method

We report a facile and rapid method for fabrication of composite particles consisting of a polystyrene (PS) core and a uniform silver shell. The process involves the PS colloid surface swelling, the anchoring of silver ions and nanoparticles onto the surfaces, and the subsequent growth of metal seeds in a short period. The present approach has the advantages of simplicity and high efficiency. The TEM images show the morphology of the obtained PS core-silver shell particles, and their chemical composition and crystallinity are analysed by x-ray diffraction. To our knowledge, this is the first study based on swelling PS surface for synthesis of silver-coated PS particles and may be implemented for preparing other metal-coated PS particles.