Synthesis of highly stable silver nanoparticles by photoreduction and their size fractionation by phase transfer method

In this report we demonstrate a green chemical approach for the synthesis of stable silver nanoparticles in aqueous medium using tyrosine as an efficient photoreducing agent. A narrow size distribution of silver nanoparticles can be achieved by this simple photoirradiation method without using any additional stabilizing agents or surfactants. Two different irradiation sources have been explored resulting in a different particle size distribution pattern in each case. Further, we show that starting from a polydisperse tyrosine synthesized silver nanoparticles sample, it is also possible to fractionate them into different size ranges. The size fractionation was achieved by a 2 stage phase transfer method employing different organic solvents. The nanoparticles synthesized were characterized using UV–vis spectroscopy, Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques.

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► Green synthesis of Ag nanoparticles with tyrosine as a photoreducing agent.
► Size control by varying the irradiation source.
► Size fractionation of polydisperse nanoparticles by 2 step phase transfer.
► Highly stable nanoparticles suitable for making dry redespersible powders.