Functionalization of silver nanoparticles by thiols containing different functional groups

Keywords:
silver, nanoparticles, thiols, functionalization, characterization

Abstract:
Silver nano-particles are used in preparation of many materials used in medicine, biochemistry, electrochemistry, and optics. Surface properties of these nanoparticles can be varied in a wide range via surface modification by organic compounds with a range of functional groups. Our work is focused on functionalizing silver with alkyl, amine, hydroxyl and other functional groups to study their effect on the dispersion properties of silver colloids. Commercial silver particles (Ferro Corporation, South Plainfield, NJ) were modified by reaction of the surface with thiol compounds containing the abovementioned functional groups. The presence of thiols on silver surfaces was confirmed by elemental analysis and IR spectroscopy. Dispersion properties were studied by various methods of particle size analysis, which include dynamic light scattering, static light scattering, centrifugal photo-sedimentation, surface area analysis and electron microscopy. Using these data, the degree of dispersion was determined by computation of the average agglomerate number (AAN) for water and alcohol systems. AAN results will also be presented to rank order the effectiveness of each functionalized thiol for dispersing silver and explain the origin of the observed results.

Back to Program

Nanotech 2007 Conference Program Abstract