Processes for preparing stabilized metal-containing nanoparticles comprising silver and/or a silver alloy composite by reacting a silver compound with a reducing agent comprising a hydrazine compound at a temperature between about 20 C. and about 60 C. The reaction being carried out by incrementally adding the silver compound or a mixture of the silver compound and a stabilizer to a solution comprising the reducing agent, a stabilizer, and a solvent. Conductive ink compositions containing stabilized metal-containing nanoparticles prepared by such processes.

A metal nanoparticle dispersion for forming a metal coating film by application and sintering contains metal nanoparticles having an average particle size of 200 nm or less and a solvent used to disperse the metal nanoparticles. The metal nanoparticle dispersion further contains a water soluble resin. The amount of the water soluble resin contained is preferably 0.1 parts by mass or more and 10 parts by mass or less per 100 parts by mass of the metal nanoparticles.

The method for preparing metal nanoparticles includes preparing an extract of myrrh and mixing the extract with an aqueous solution including a metal salt. The mixture changes in color from light yellow to dark brown upon formation of nanoparticles. The extract of myrrh can be a water extract prepared by, for example, soaking a quantity of myrrh in water, filtering the soaked myrrh to obtain a filtered product, and then centrifuging the filtered product. The metal salt can be, for example, silver nitrate (AgNO.sub.3). The metal nanoparticles can be spherical, spheroidal, elongated spherical, rod, and/or faceted. The metal nanoparticles can be used to treat Leishmaniasis (lesions) caused by Leishmania major.

A particulate material is provided consisting of a plurality of porous particles comprising an electroactive material selected from silicon, germanium or a mixture thereof (especially a silicon-aluminium alloy), wherein the porous particles have a D.sub.50 particle diameter in the range of 0.5 to 7 m, an intra-particle porosity between 50 and 90%, and a pore diameter distribution having at least one peak in the range of 30 to 400 nm as determined by mercury porosimetry. Also provided are electrodes (especially anodes) and electrode compositions comprising the particulate material, a rechargeable metal-ion battery (especially a Li-ion battery) comprising the particulate material, and a process for the preparation of the particulate material. It is suggested that the claimed particulate material can be repeatedly lithiated without fracturing, allows easy access to the electrolyte and can be easily dispersed in an electrode slurry.

Provided are a method for producing nickel seed crystals that maintains and improves the quality of nickel powder at a low cost while suppressing production cost and environmental load in the production of nickel powder, by optimizing the amount of hydrazine added when producing fine nickel powder as seed crystals using hydrazine; and a method for producing nickel powder using the nickel seed crystals. The method for producing seed crystals used for producing hydrogen-reduced nickel powder, including adding, to an acid solution containing nickel ions that is maintained at a temperature of 50 to 60 C., hydrazine of 1 to 1.25 mol per 1 mol of a nickel component contained in the acid solution to produce the seed crystals.

The present disclosure relates to methods for producing nanoparticles. The nanoparticles may be made using ethanol as the solvent and the reductant to fabricate noble-metal nanoparticles with a narrow particle size distributions, and to coat a thin metal shell on other metal cores. With or without carbon supports, particle size is controlled by fine-tuning the reduction power of ethanol, by adjusting the temperature, and by adding an alkaline solution during syntheses. The thickness of the added or coated metal shell can be varied easily from sub-monolayer to multiple layers in a seed-mediated growth process. The entire synthesis of designed core-shell catalysts can be completed using metal salts as the precursors with more than 98% yield; and, substantially no cleaning processes are necessary apart from simple rinsing. Accordingly, this method is considered to be a green chemistry method.

The invention is drawn to novel nanostructures comprising hollow nanospheres and nanotubes for use as chemical sensors, conduits for fluids, and electronic conductors. The nanostructures can be used in microfluidic devices, for transporting fluids between devices and structures in analytical devices, for conducting electrical currents between devices and structure in analytical devices, and for conducting electrical currents between biological molecules and electronic devices, such as bio-microchips.

Provided is a process for silver nanowire production in which the major-axis length of the silver nanowires can be controlled in a wide range and an agent for controlling the growth of silver nanowires. A process for silver nanowire production which is characterized in that an agent for controlling the growth of silver nanowires which comprises a polymer obtained by polymerizing one or more polymerizable monomers comprising an N-substituted (meth)acrylamide is reacted with a silver compound in a polyol at 25-180 C. The agent for controlling the growth of silver nanowires is characterized by comprising a polymer which has units of an N-substituted (meth)acrylamide as a polymerizable monomer.

The present application relates to colloidal chemistry, specifically to methods of synthesising gold nanoparticle colloids in a non-aqueous solvent, preferably, in dimethyl sulfoxide. In particular these gold nanoparticles have an average size of 5-20 nm and are in a biocompatible colloidal solution.

The present application relates to colloidal chemistry, specifically to methods of synthesising silver nanoparticle colloids in a non-aqueous solvent, preferably, in dimethyl sulfoxide. In particular these silver nanoparticles have an average size of 12-20 nm and are in a biocompatible colloidal solution.