Visible Light-Induced Reduction of Ag+ Cations in Silver Hydrosols

It is shown that, in silver hydrosols that are produced by the reduction of metal cations under the action of borohydride and do not contain electron-donor additives, the photoinduced reduction of Ag+ ions and photoinduced oxidation of nanoparticles occur at pH 9.0 and 4.0, respectively. The effect of ionic composition position of sols on the direction of the photoinduced process makes it possible to assume that OH- anions reduce silver cations on the surface of nanosized nuclei.