Interaction of silver nanoparticles with polymers and surfactants

Abstract

In the present work, we have seen the interaction of small sized citrate capped Ag NPs with polymers and the surfactants .The capping agent used in Ag NPs to stabilize them is negatively charged and its interaction with the positively charged polymer and positively charged surfactant shows good and stable aggregation of Ag NPs. Cationic PDADMAC shows electrostatic interaction with Ag NPs which is confirm by comparing the results with the interaction of Ag NPs with neutral polymer PVP, anionic surfactant SDS and neutral surfactant TX-100 using UV–Vis spectrometer. The hydrodynamic size of aggregated Ag NPs were also calculated using dynamic light scattering (DLS) and these aggregation are studied using PL microscopy and morphology of polymer in absence and presence of Ag NPs using FE-SEM. On the other hand we have used cationic surfactant instead of polymer to study the aggregation of Ag NPs and further extent the interaction of these surfactant induced aggregation with neutral polymer PVP and perform UV-Vis spectroscopy, PL microscopy to visualize the type of interaction (i.e. hydrophobic or electrostatic) in between PVP and the surfactant using Ag NPs aggregation as PL marker.