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Facile Synthesis of CTAB Coated Au-Ag Core-Shell Nanoparticles and their Catalytic and Antibacterial Activity

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Abstract

This work reports the synthesis of cationic surfactant-coated Au-Ag core-shell (Au@Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) via a straightforward seed-mediated approach. The UV-Vis analysis showed that the plasmon peak position of synthesized Au@Ag NPs correlated with the thickness of the Ag shell encapsulating the Au core. The Au@Ag NPs have shown impressive catalytic performance for the reduction reactions of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) and methyl orange (MO) where the apparent rate constant experienced a remarkable increase by 67-fold and 90-fold, respectively, when Au@Ag NPs with the Ag-shell thickness of 6.3 nm were employed as a catalyst, compared to Au NPs. This multifold improvement in the activity cannot be simply accounted for by the increase in surface area of NPs and is attributed to the electronic synergistic effects between Au and Ag in the core-shell NPs. Furthermore, while Au@Ag NPs exhibited heightened antibacterial activity against both Gram-positive S. aureus and Gram-negative E. coli bacteria, this enhancement is modest. Notably, the anticipated significant enhancement attributed to Ag's renowned antibacterial properties was not observed. The presence of cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) enables both Au and Au@Ag NPs to effectively bind with the negatively charged bacterial cell membranes through electrostatic interactions. Apparently, CTAB enables both types of NPs to effectively target and eliminate bacteria with comparable efficiency.

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Data is available on request.

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Funding

The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the Researchers Supporting Program, Project number (RSP-2024R518), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The authors thank the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan for the National Research Program for Universities (NRPU) grant no. 8380.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Laboratory, Department of Physics, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Park Road, 45500, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Shaffaq Ashraf, Unsia Batool, Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Mamoona Azad & Waqqar Ahmed

  2. Department of Biosciences, Faculty of Science, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Park Road, 45500, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Rabia Shahbaz & Muhammad Imran

  3. Chemistry Department, College of Science, King Saud University, 11451, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Mohamed A. Ghanem

  4. School of Chemistry, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom

    Khaled M. H. Mohammed

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  1. Shaffaq Ashraf
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  2. Unsia Batool
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Contributions

Shaffaq Ashraf: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft. Unsia Batool: Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft. Ghazanfar Ali Khan: Validation, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology. Mamoona Azad: Validation Rabia Shahbaz: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation. Muhammad Imran: Resources, Formal analysis, Supervision Mohamed A. Ghanem: Supervision, Validation, Resources, Characterization, Writing – review & editing Khaled M. H. Mohammed: Validation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing Waqqar Ahmed: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – review & editing.

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Correspondence to Mohamed A. Ghanem or Waqqar Ahmed.

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Ashraf, S., Batool, U., Khan, G.A. et al. Facile Synthesis of CTAB Coated Au-Ag Core-Shell Nanoparticles and their Catalytic and Antibacterial Activity. J Clust Sci (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10876-024-02633-w

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