Activity of catalytic silver nanoparticles modulated by capping agent hydrophobicity

•In situ preparation of silver nanoparticles based on homologues series of amphiphilic N-acyl tyramines.•Size and shape of the AgNPs were not altered by varying the acyl chain length of NATA.•NATA-AgNPs show remarkable catalytic activity in the reduction of nitroaromatics.•Rate of the reduction reaction is directly related to the capping agent hydrophobicity.

In this paper, a facile in situ method is reported for the preparation of catalytic silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using N-acyl tyramine (NATA) with variable hydrophobic acyl length. Scanning electron microscopic analysis shows that NATA exists initially as larger aggregates in alkaline aqueous solution. The addition of AgNO3 dissociates these larger aggregate and subsequently promotes the formation of self-assembled NATA and AgNPs. Characterization of AgNPs using UV–vis spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope revealed that the hydrophobic acyl chain length of NATA does not influence the particle size, shape and morphology. All NATA-AgNPs yielded relatively identical values in full width at half-maximum (FWHM) analysis, indicating that the AgNPs prepared with NATA are relatively polydispersed at all tested acyl chain lengths. These nanoparticles are able to efficiently catalyze the reduction of 4-nitro phenol to 4-amino phenol, 2-nitro aniline to 1,2-diamino benzene, 2,4,6-trinitro phenol to 2,4,6-triamino phenol by NaBH4 in an aqueous environment. The reduction reaction rate is determined to be pseudo-first order and the apparent rate constant is linearly dependent on the hydrophobic acyl chain length of the NATA. All reaction kinetics presented an induction period, which is dependent on the N-acyl chain length, indicating that the hydrophobic effects play a critical role in bringing the substrate to the metal nanoparticle surface to induce the catalytic reaction. In this study, however, the five catalytic systems have similar size and polydispersity, differing only in terms of capping agent hydrophobicity, and shows different catalytic activity with respect to the alkyl chain length of the capping agent. As discussed, the ability to modulate the metal nanoparticles catalytic property, by modifying the capping agent hydrophobicity represents a promising future for developing an efficient nanocatalyst without altering the size, shape and morphology of the nanoparticles.

Graphical abstractFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide