Effect of amine groups in the synthesis of Ag nanoparticles using aminosilanes

This work presents a simple method to produce silver nanoparticles through AgNO3 chemical reduction in a continuous media. Aminosilanes act as catalytic reactors and superficial modifiers of Ag nanoparticles, inhibiting their growth and avoiding aggregation. Nanoparticles formation is studied by UV–vis spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) techniques. The extent of the reduction reaction increases with either a higher aminosilane concentration or with aminosilanes with a higher number of amine groups. The number of amine groups in the aminosilane has also a strong effect on the size of the resulting Ag particles. The morphology of the Ag nanoparticles obtained is spherical and the mean size is of approximately 5 nm.