Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles Based on Hydrophobic Interface Regulation and Its Application of Electrochemical Catalysis

It has been shown that the aggregation of particles is a big challenge in synthetics progress due to the Brownian movement and van der Waals potential among the particles. Thus, how to avoid aggregation to synthesize nanoparticles with homogeneous morphology has been greatly impressed by considerable researchers and many strategies have been implemented to solve the problem in recent years. In this paper, a novel method for silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) synthesize based on the regulation of hydrophobic interface was proposed, studies showed that in the presence of hydrophobic polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS), AgNPs with homogeneous morphology grown on interface between GO and silver nitrate (AgNO3) solution through a kind of common chemical reduction, and aggregation of AgNPs is avoided effectively without any protection under room temperature. The possible mechanism is discussed and the obtained AgNPs-POSS/rGO nanocomposites are used to fabricate electrochemical sensor for nitrobenzene, p-nitroaniline, and p-nitrobenzoic acid sensing. The composites have good ability to catalyze nitroaromatic compounds with the broad linear ranges of 0.5-155 ppm, 0.1-77 ppm, and 0.05-330 ppm and the low detection limits of 0.1, 0.05, and 0.02 ppm, respectively. The novel method provides a new platform for the synthesis of nanomaterials, the idea that changing hydrophobic/hydrophilic property of substrate material for growth of namomaterial may open up the traditional synthetic minds, and it will be expected to synthesize other optical, electronic, and magnetic nanomaterials.