Naia Peters
Pronouns:
Research Mentor(s): Nirala Singh
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Chemical Engineering / Engineering
Program: UROP
Session: Session 6 (3:40pm – 4:30pm)
Authors: Naia Peters, Jared Arkfeld
Abstract
Nanoparticles are valuable catalysts in chemical synthesis. Nanoparticles can exhibit different physical and chemical properties based on their size, which makes size control a valuable tool for catalyst use^1. However, there is limited information on how to consistently and simply acquire nanoparticles of a desired size. The purpose of this research is to investigate the viability of the seed growth method in producing monodisperse silver and gold nanoparticles of a specified size. An additional goal of this research is to correlate data from affordable, fast characterization techniques such as UV-visible spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering, and x-ray diffraction to particle size, as techniques like electron microscopy are time-intensive and expensive. To test the efficacy of the seed growth method, silver and gold seeds were made from the reduction of silver nitrate and chloroauric acid, respectively, by sodium borohydride with trisodium citrate as a stabilizer. The silver and gold seeds were then grown with additional silver nitrate/chloroauric acid and trisodium citrate. The nanoparticles were characterized using UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), x-ray diffraction (XRD), dynamic light scattering (DLS), and electron microscopy (STEM). The formation and growth of the nanoparticles were confirmed through STEM. The nanoparticles agglomerate and become polydisperse over time which was observed through DLS and STEM. Through data analysis, it has been observed that UV-Vis and DLS seem to scale with XRD reasonably, however, UV-Vis and DLS do not scale well with each other. (1) Khan I.; Saeed K.; Khan I. Nanoparticles: Properties, applications and toxicities Arab. J. Chem. 2019, 12, Science Direct https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878535217300990 (accessed Jan 17, 2023)
