Fabrication and chemical etching of Ag/C nanocables

In this paper, Ag/C nanocables were synthesized via a one-step simple hydrothermal route by using glucose as reducing agent and carbon source, AgNO3 as silver source. The products are characterized in detail by multiform techniques: X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy. The results show that the obtained products are coaxial nanocables with lengths of several micrometers, about 200-500 nm in diameter, and a surrounding sheath about 80-100 nm in thickness. Different products including carbonaceous nanotubes and nanocables with fragmentary Ag core were obtained by adjusting time of chemical etching.