Magnetic and noble metallic nanoparticles deposited on silica spheres via silanization

A sol-gel technique has been developed to deposit various nanoparticles (NPs) on silica spheres. The silanization of the silica spheres using 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane (MPS) with mercapto groups (-SH) plays an important role for the deposition. After being functionalized by MPS, the deposition of magnetic and noble metallic NPs was performed by the reduction of Au3+ and Ag+ ions in-situ using sodium borohydride (NaBH4) or the co-precipitation reaction of Fe2+/Fe3+ ions and ammonia (NH3 H2O) at low reactant concentrations at room temperature. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) observation of samples exhibited the homogeneous deposition of Ag, Au, and Fe3O4 NPs on the silica spheres, in which the average size of Au and Ag NPs is 5 nm in diameter while the ones of Fe3O4 NPs is about 10 nm. In the case of without the silanization of silica spheres, the nucleation and growth of the NPs in solutions occur instead of the homogenous deposition. The results demonstrates that MPS containing the -SH metal-chelating functionality, can grow a layer in an ethanol solution on the silica spheres, thus improving the performance of the silica surface by grafting -SH groups. These hybrids offer a high absorption capacity for metal ions, all kinds of NPs can be deposited on the surface by co-precipitation channel on the basis of such property. The results presented hear may open up a novel and simple approach for the preparation of composite NPs.