A facile and controllable strategy to synthesize Au-Ag alloy nanoparticles within polyelectrolyte multilayer nanoreactors upon thermal reduction

A new synthesis strategy has been developed for the preparation of bimetallic gold-silver (Au-Ag) alloy nanoparticles by the virtue of polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) nanoreactors. By controlling the assembly conditions, gold and silver ions can be effectively loaded onto the PEM composed of polyethylenimine (PEI) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) simultaneously. Upon further thermal treatment, Au-Ag alloy nanoparticles with sizes of ca. 3.8 nm formed in the PEM, which were characterized in detail by UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis. Appearance of a single plasmon band in the visible region and lack of apparent core-shell structures in the TEM images confirm the formation of homogeneous Au-Ag alloy nanoparticles. In addition, the surface plasmon absorption band of the Au-Ag alloy nanoparticles shows linear blue-shift with increasing Ag content, which also supported the formation of alloy nanoparticles. Several key parameters of the present strategy have been investigated, which showed that pH of both the assembly solution and gold salt solution and the choice of polymers for constructing PEM, as well as the reduction approach, all played an important role in successfully synthesizing bimetallic Au-Ag nanoparticles. The formation mechanism of alloy nanoparticles has also been discussed based on the spectral evolution during the thermal reduction.