Preparation Of Silver Nanoparticles And Their Applications

Silver nanoparticles are an intense field of research because of their vast number of significant applications including antimicrobial, optics, electronics, catalysis, and data storage. In recent years, researches on the synthesis of silver nanoparticles focused on two major approaches: preparation of colloidal solutions of silver nanoparticles and in-situ formation of silver nanoparticles in solid matrices. For the in-situ formation, the preparation processes of most substrates are usually very complex. For the colloidal solutions of silver nanoparticles, Strong bonds to silver nanoparticles can be constructed using highly effective stabilizers such as thiol derivatives, long-chain amines to make the particles very stable. However, the strong bonds can also make the silver nanoparticles devoid of sufficient chemical reactivities at the same time.In the present report, in-situ synthesis of silver nanoparticles was directly carried out in cellulose fibers. The electron-rich oxygen atoms of polar hydroxyl and ether groups facilitate adsorption of silver ions and the formation of uniform and stable silver nanoparticles in cellulose fibers. Nanosilver colloid solution was prepared using natural cellulose fibers as solid phase dispersion matrix. Compared to traditional methods, our synthesis proceeded without any additional stabilizer, which makes sure the silver nanoparticles contain sufficient chemical reactivities in colloid solution. Besides the preparation, we have also done lots of research on the application of silver nanoparticles. Our results proved the high antimicrobial efficiency of the cellulose fibers loaded with silver nanoparticles, combining its advantages of easy access, low cost and environment-friendly, such cellulose fibers containing silver nanoparticles must be a very promising material in medical and sanitation fields. The enhanced fluorescence experiments indicated that without the hindrance of macromolecular stabilizer, nanosilver colloid solution gave remarkable enhancing effect on fluorescent property in relative low concentration of silver nanoparticles.