Kinetic monitoring of glutathione-induced silver nanoparticle disintegration.

Claudia Kästner,Patrick E J Saloga,Andreas F Thünemann

doi:10.1039/c8nr02369g

Claudia Kästner, Patrick E J Saloga + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1039/c8nr02369g

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Abstract

We report on etching of polyacrylic acid-stabilised silver nanoparticles in the presence of glutathione (GSH). The initial particles with a radius of 3.2 nm and consisting of ∼8100 silver atoms dissolve in a two-step reaction mechanism while in parallel smaller silver particles with a radius of 0.65 nm and consisting of 60 to 70 silver atoms were formed. The kinetics of the etching of the initial particles, accompanied by formation of smaller silver particles was interpreted based on in situ, time-resolved small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments.

Highlights

Today the commercial, societal, and environmental impacts of a wide range of emerging silver nanoparticle technologies is under highly controversial dispute as reviewed recently by Calderón-Jiménez et al.[1]
After adding GSH to the silver nanoparticles in a molar ratio of 1 to 5, the mixture was incubated at a temperature of 21 °C
We found no significant difference in the resultant bimodal size distributions when short and long time small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements were used for data evaluation

Summary

Introduction

Societal, and environmental impacts of a wide range of emerging silver nanoparticle technologies is under highly controversial dispute as reviewed recently by Calderón-Jiménez et al.[1]. According to literature,[11] we expected that GSH continuously etches the silver nanoparticles, resulting in a decreasing radius and in their dissolution. Based on the SAXS data, we can draw the hypothesis that incubation with GSH leads to the formation of “new”, very small silver particles at the expense of the “old”, larger particles.

Results

Conclusion