Abstract
Hydroxypropyl carboxymethyl cellulose samples having varying degrees of substitution and varying degrees of polymerization were used to reduce silver nitrate to silver nanoparticles. UV spectral analysis of silver nanoparticles colloidal solution reveal that increasing the pH of the reduction solution leads to improvement in the intensity of the absorption band for silver nanoparticles, to be maximum at pH 11. The absorption peak intensity also enhanced upon prolonging the reaction duration up to 60min. The conversion of silver ions to metallic silver nanoparticles was found to be temperature-dependent and maximum transformation occurs at 60°C. The reduction efficiency of hydroxypropyl carboxymethyl cellulose was found to be affected by its degree of polymerization. Colloidal solutions of silver nanoparticles having concentration up to 1000ppm can be prepared upon fixing the ratio between silver nitrate and hydroxypropyl carboxymethyl cellulose at 0.017–0.3g per each 100ml of the reduction solution.