Silver Nanoparticles Fabricated Hybrid Microgels for Optical and Catalytic Study

In this work different compositions of smart poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-vinylacetic acid-acrylamide) poly(NIPAM-VAA-AAm) microgels with different vinyl acetic acid (VAA) contents have been synthesized successfully by conventional free radical emulsion polymerization. Silver metal nanoparticles (NPs) were fabricated inside the microgels network by insitu reduction method using sodium borohydride (NaBH4) as reducing agent. The confirmation of polymerization and entrapment of metal NPs were carried out by FT-IR spectroscopy. Dynamic laser light scattering (DLLS) technique was used for calculating average hydrodynamic diameter of microgel particles. The optical properties of silver NPs were studied by UV-Visible spectroscopy at various conditions of pH and temperature. The hybrid microgels show red shift and increase in intensity of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) band with the increase in temperature and decrease in pH of the medium. The synthesized materials were used as catalysts in the reduction process and it was found that the catalyst composed of high amount of VAA shows enhanced catalytic activity. The apparent rate constant (kapp) for catalyst composed of 12% VAA was doubled (5.6×10-3sec-1) as compared to 4% VAA containing catalyst (2.8×10-3sec-1).

Luqman Ali Shah, Jaweria Ambreen, Iram Bibi, Murtaza Sayed and Mohammad Siddiq