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Abstract
Silver nanoparticles were obtained in aqueous medium, at room temperature, by redox reactions, with or without glucose, in the presence of a glucose-containing cyclosiloxane. The siloxane surfactant can act as stabilizer when glucose is present in the system, but also as reducing agent and stabilizer when no glucose is added. The kinetics was followed by absorption UV-Vis spectroscopy, and different behaviors were found for the two versions of the redox process: first-order kinetics for the reaction with glucose and a much slower complex reaction with three zero-order steps when no glucose was added. The reactions were also investigated with IR absorption spectroscopy. The resulting nanoparticles were analyzed by dynamic light scattering (DLS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) analysis, and transmision electron microscopy (TEM). All data showed evidence for the formation of silver spherical nanoparticles, with an average diameter of 14 nm (reaction with glucose) and 6.5 nm (reaction without glucose), respectively.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]