Synthesis of nanosilver on polyamide fabric using silver/ammonia complex

•Novel in situ synthesis of nanosilver on polyamide 6•Synthesis of nanosilver without using external stabilizing and reducing agent•Synthesis of nanosilver particles within molecular chains of polyamide 6•Producing antibacterial polyamide 6 using 35 mg/L Ag/ammonia complex•Obtaining durable antibacterial properties on polyamide 6 by this method

In this paper, a novel synthesis method for nanosilver has been introduced on or within the polymeric chains of polyamide 6 fabric by using silver/ammonia complex [Ag(NH3)2]+. The silver complex was reduced directly by functional groups of polyamide chains without using any additional chemical reducing agents. The polyamide fabric was also stabilized with formation of new linkages between the polymeric chains of the nylon fabric through silver nanoparticle synthesis. The presence of nanosilver on the fabric was confirmed by UV–vis spectra, EDX patterns and XRD patterns. In addition, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was utilized to identify the chemical state of silver in a range of silver oxide and silver metal. The SEM images confirmed the presence of nanosilver on the polyamide within the size of 20 and 150 nm. Excellent antibacterial properties were achieved with the treated fabrics against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. Further, the antibacterial properties of the polyamide fabric treated with 35 mg/L silver/ammonia were durable against washing as they only decreased to 98.6% after 20 washes. In addition, some other properties of the treated fabrics including color changes, dimensional stability, water droplet adsorption, and reflectance spectrum are reported and thoroughly discussed.

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