Synthesis of gold nanoparticles inside polyelectrolyte brushes

O. AZZARONI; A.A. BROWN; N. CHENG; A. WEI; A.M. JONAS; W.T.S. HUCK

JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY

Año: 2007 p. 3433 - 3439

0959-9428

In this work we report on the synthesis and characterization of Au nanoparticles grown in theinner environment of cationic polyelectrolyte brushes. The nanocomposite synthesis relies onloading the macromolecular film with AuCl4 precursor ions followed by their in situ reduction to Au nanoparticles. We observed that the nanoparticles are uniform in size and are fully stabilizedby the surrounding polyelectrolyte chains. Moreover, XRR analysis revealed that the Au NPs areformed within the polymer-brush layer. AFM experiments confirmed that the swelling behaviourof the brush layer is not perturbed by the presence of the loaded NPs. The Au NP-poly-METACnanocomposite is remarkably stable to aqueous environments, suggesting the feasibility of usingthis kind of nanocomposite systems as robust and reliable stimuli-responsive platforms.