TOPO-capped silver selenide nanoparticles and their incorporation into polymer nanofibers using electrospinning technique

• Ag2Se nanoparticles produced spherical particles with sizes 12 nm (180 °C) and 27 nm (200 °C).
• Higher temperature produced increased particle size (∼75 nm) and changed in shape.
• Ag2Se nanoparticles (0.2–0.6%) added into PVP (35–45%) to yield reduced fiber beading.
• Polymer nanofibers electrospun at 11–20 kV produced fiber diameters of 425–461 nm.
• Optical properties in the fibers were observed due to the Ag2Se nanoparticles loaded.

Electrospinning is the most common technique for fabricating polymer fibers as well as nanoparticles embedded polymer fibers. Silver selenide nanoparticles were synthesized using tri-n-octylphosphine (TOP) as solvent and tri-n-octylphosphine oxide (TOPO) as capping environment. Silver selenide was prepared by reacting silver nitrate and selenium with tri-n-octylphosphine (TOP) to form TOP–Ag and TOP–Se solutions. Both absorption and emission spectra signify the formation of nanoparticles as well as the TEM which revealed spherical particles with an average particle size of 22 nm. The polymer, PVP used was prepared at concentrations ranging from (35 to 45 wt%) and the TOPO-capped silver selenide nanoparticles (0.2 and 0.6 wt%) were incorporated into them and electrospun by varying the voltage from 11 to 20 kV. The SEM images of the Ag2Se/PVP composite fibers revealed the fibers of diameters with average values of 425 and 461 nm. The X-ray diffraction results show peaks which were identified due to α-Ag2Se body centered cubic compound. The sharp peak observed for all the samples at 2θ = 44.5 suggest the presence of Ag in the face centered cubic which can be attributed to higher concentration of silver nitrate used with molar ratio of selenium to silver and the abundance of silver in the silver selenide crystal. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy were used to characterize the structure of the PVP/Ag2Se composite fibers.

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