Silver Nanoparticles on Cellulose Surfaces: Quantitative Measurements

In this work, cellulose films pre-activated with carbonyldiimidazole (CDI) and grafted with 1,6-hexanediamine, were decorated with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The generation of AgNPs was followed by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). The obtained films were characterized by X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and imaged by atomic force microscopy (AFM). XPS confirmed the synthesis in situ of AgNPs on the film attesting their oxidation state. The results from the three techniques were compared showing how sound the quantitative treatment of the results issued from these techniques can be. The main objective of this work is exactly to show that the quantitative exploration of the results of different characterization techniques can and should be practiced systematically instead of just comparing them qualitatively.