Reduction of Transition Metal Salts by SFS: Synthesis of Copper and Silver Sulphides

Simple one‐step formation of copper and silver sulphide has been achieved from direct reaction of respective metal salts in N,N′‐dimethylformamide (DMF) by use of sodium formaldehyde sulfoxylate (SFS) as a reducing agent. It is believed that the SFS plays a dual role, i.e., of a reducing agents as well as of a surfactant to keep control on the particles growth and generates nano size powders of these sulphides. Such a method has not been tested to date for formation of these semiconductors.

Keywords:

• chemical reduction
• transition metal
• semiconductors
• XRD

The author is thankful to Director, C‐MET, Pune for permission. Financial support for this work from Department of Information technology (MCIT), New Delhi through grant no. 20(7)2003‐VCND is gratefully acknowledged.