Electrochemical synthesis of selenium nanoparticles and formation of sea urchin-like selenium nanoparticles by electrostatic assembly

Abstract

Electrochemical synthesis has been proved to be a versatile and simple approach for the preparation of nanoparticles. In this work, an electrochemical method was successfully applied to synthesize selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) via using selenium powder doped carbon paste electrode. SeNPs were spherical with diameters of about 85, 43 and 60nm and well dispersed in the presence of sucrose, polyvinylpyrrolidone and sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS), respectively. Surprisingly, when adding cetane trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) into the spherical SeNPs modified with SDS, spherical SeNPs changed to sea urchin-like SeNPs by electrostatic assembly. The effects of SDS and CTAB on the morphology of SeNPs were investigated.