Dispersibility of organically coated silver nanoparticles in organic media

Coating of organophobic silver nano-particles with thiols was applied to facilitate their dispersing in aprotic organic solvents and solutions of polyacrylic acid and polylactide. Impact of chemical nature of thiols and dipole moment of the solvents on dispersibility of the modified silver particles was studied by UV–Vis spectroscopy (surface plasmon resonance) and scanning electron microscopy. It was shown that thiols’ grafting to the surface of metal nanoparticles is an effective route to improve and stabilize dispersions in organic systems.