Surface Plasmon Resonance and Aggregate Stability of Silver Nanoparticle Complexes with Chemotripsin

Abstract

Extinction spectra, effective sizes, and aggregate stability of silver nanoparticles and nanocomplexes of silver nanoparticles with chymotrypsin obtained by the reactions of chemical reduction of silver nitrate using sodium borohydride as a reducing agent are studied. It is shown that silver nanoparticles obtained in the absence of chymotrypsin are aggregatively stable only at pH values immediately after synthesis. The placement of the synthesized silver nanoparticles in buffer solutions with pH values from 3.0 to 12.0 resulted in the appearance of a wide absorption band in the visible region of the spectrum, which is due to the agglomeration of silver nanoparticles, which appears to be the result of the destruction of the double electric layer formed by the ions making up sodium borohydride. The presence of chymotrypsin in the reaction medium resulted in significant spectral changes. Unlike silver nanoparticles synthesized in the absence of chymotrypsin, for nanocomplexes of silver nanoparticles with chymotrypsin with a change in pH, the shape of the extinction spectra and the position of the surface plasmon resonance band were preserved, while nanocomplexes of silver nanoparticles with chymotrypsin retained the aggregative stability in solutions in the pH range from 3.0 to 12.0 within a month. The observed stabilization effect of silver nanoparticles over a wide pH range induced by the presence of chymotrypsin in the reaction medium can be used further to develop methods for immobilizing enzymes on nanoparticles of biogenic elements and for creating polyfunctional pharmaceuticals, in which the components of nanocomplexes have different biological activity.