Role of Surfactant in the Formation of Gold Nanoparticles in Aqueous Medium

The stability of gold nanoparticles is a major issue which decides their impending usage in nanobiotechnological applications. Often biomimetically synthesized nanoparticles are deemed useless owing to their instability in aqueous medium. So, surfactants are used to stabilize the nanoparticles. But does the surfactant only stabilize by being adsorbed to the surface of the nanoparticles and not play significantly in moulding the size and shape of the nanoparticles? Keeping this idea in mind, gold nanoparticles (GNPs) synthesized by l-tryptophan (Trp) mediated reduction of chloroauric acid (HAuCl4) were stabilized by anionic surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS), and its effect on the moulding of size and properties of the GNPs was studied. Interestingly, unlike most of the gold nanoparticles synthesis mechanism showing saturation growth mechanism, inclusion of SDS in the reaction mixture for GNPs synthesis resulted in a bimodal mechanism which was studied by UV-Vis spectroscopy. The mechanism was further substantiated with transmission electron microscopy. Zeta potential of GNPs solutions was measured to corroborate stability observations recorded visually.