Pseudomatrix synthesis of polymer-metal nanocomposite sols: Interaction of macromolecules with metal nanoparticles

The experimental and theoretical data on the effect of macromolecules on the formation of a metal phase during reduction of metal ions in a polymer solution and on the aggregative stability of sols with a narrow size distribution of metal nanoparticles and their small average size are summarized and analyzed. It has been shown that owing to the cooperativity, reversibility, and selectivity of noncovalent interactions of sufficiently long macromolecules with nanoparticles, the dispersion phase of such sols may be regarded as a macromolecule-nanoparticle complex, which forms once a certain size of the particles is achieved and in which the growth of particles ceases. The process of sol synthesis may be regarded as pseudomatrix. The theoretical model developed for the pseudomatrix process of metal phase formation in polymer solutions, which adequately describes the experimental data, makes it possible to control the synthesis conditions of sols of polymer-metal nanocomposites with preset dimensional characteristics of nanoparticles and to govern the aggregative stability of sols.