Surface co-silanization engineering to enhance amine functionality for adhesive heterojunction and antimicrobial application

Abstract

Surface functionalization of quartz is of practical importance for versatile applications. Amine functionality is constructed on quartz via surface composite engineering with an amine-terminated organosilane, 3-aminopropyl trimethoxysilane (APTMS). In this study, we demonstrate a facile co-silanization method which bulky triphenylsilanol (TPS) is introduced to spatially confine the grafting orientation of functional APTMS, giving rise to a well-organized APTMS-TPS composite nanolayer to maximize amine functionality and suppress molecular agglomeration. Contact angle measurement, atomic force microscopy, angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Kelvin probe force microscopy, ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, and energy minimization calculation are used to identify the well-organized conformations of surface co-silanization. The co-silanized APTMS-TPS composite nanolayer exhibits high efficacy in the metal immobilization, acting as an adhesion promoter to increase the adhesion strength of Ni/quartz heterojunction. Immobilization of Ag nanoparticles on amine-functionalized quartz is also achieved which is a facile method to prepare an efficient antimicrobial surface.