Abstract
Chitosan (CS) is a biocompatible polysaccharide with positive charge that is widely used as a coating agent for negatively charged nanoparticles. However, the types of structures that emerge by combining CS and nanoparticles as well as their behaviour are still poorly understood. In this work, we characterize the nanocomposites formed by gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and CS and study the influence of CS in the expected aggregation process that should experience those nanoparticles under the favourable conditions of low pH and high ionic strength. Thus, at the working CS concentration, we observe the existence of CS structures that quickly trap the AuNPs and avoid the formation of nanoparticle aggregates in environmental conditions that, otherwise, would lead to such an aggregation.
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Acknowledgments
This work was partially performed within a “Grupo de Excelencia de la Región de Murcia” (Grant 04531/GERM/06) with financial support provided by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad within project CTQ2012-33717 including FEDER funds. This work was also partially supported by the European Commission (FEDER/ERDF), the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (CICYT Ref. CTQ2011-25613) and the Séneca foundation (Ref. 1195/PI/09).
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Collado-González, M., Fernández Espín, V., Montalbán, M.G. et al. Aggregation behaviour of gold nanoparticles in presence of chitosan. J Nanopart Res 17, 268 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-015-3069-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-015-3069-3