Preparation of Chitosan/Polystyrene Sulfonate Multilayered Composite Metal Nanoparticles and Its Application

Metal-Chitosan (CTS) composite was first synthesized through the metal composition of chitosan (CTS) and metal ions. The formed composite was alternately deposited on the base with sodium polystyrene sulfonate (PSS) through a layer-by-layer self-assembling technique, followed by an in situ reduction by sodium borohydride to produce a polyelectrolyte nanocomposite thin film containing metal nanoparticles. Assembly, surface morphology and electrochemical properties of the composite membrane were analyzed by UV-visible absorption spectroscopy (UV-vis), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The UV-Vis results indicated that the absorbance of the multilayer film at the characteristic absorption peak increased as the membrane bilayers increased, in a good linear relationship, which demonstrated that the multilayer film was uniformly assembled on the base. AFM images showed that the surface of the multilayer thin-film composite had some degree of roughness and metal nanoparticles of 10-20 nm in size were generated on the membrane. The CV results indicated that the metal nanocomposite film had excellent electrocatalytic activity to glucose and had a potential for applications in electrochemical sensors.