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  • Effect of the alkyl chain length of secondary amines on the phase transfer of gold nanoparticles from water to toluene.

Effect of the alkyl chain length of secondary amines on the phase transfer of gold nanoparticles from water to toluene.

Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids (2014-06-04)
Katarzyna Soliwoda, Emilia Tomaszewska, Beata Tkacz-Szczesna, Ewelina Mackiewicz, Marcin Rosowski, Adam Bald, Christian Blanck, Marc Schmutz, Jiří Novák, Frank Schreiber, Grzegorz Celichowski, Jaroslaw Grobelny
ABSTRACT

In the present paper we describe a phase transfer of aqueous synthesized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) from water to toluene using secondary amines: dioctylamine, didodecylamine, and dioctadecylamine. The effect of the hydrocarbon chain length and amount of amines on the transfer efficiency were investigated in the case of nanoparticles (NPs) with three different sizes: 5, 9, and 13 nm. Aqueous colloids were precisely characterized before the transfer process using UV-vis spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Nanoparticles were next transferred to toluene and characterized using UV-vis and DLS techniques. It was found that dioctadecylamine provides the most effective transfer of nanoparticles. No time-dependent changes in the NP size were observed after 12 days, showing that the dioctadecylamine-stabilized nanoparticles dispersed in toluene were stable. This indicates that long hydrocarbon chains of dioctadecylamine exhibit sufficiently hydrophobic properties of nanoparticles and consequently their good dispersibility in nonpolar solvent.

MATERIALS
Product Number
Brand
Product Description

Sigma-Aldrich
Didodecylamine, ≥97.0% (GC)
Sigma-Aldrich
Dioctadecylamine, ≥99.0% (NT)