Room Temperature Synthesis of Aminocaproic Acid-Capped Lead Sulphide Nanoparticles

Abstract

Aminocaproic acid (ACA) mixed methanolic lead acetate-thiourea (PbAc-TU) complex as precursor for fabrication of lead sulphide (PbS) nanoparticles (NPs) has been explained. The size, structure and morphology of as-prepared ACA-capped PbS NPs were systematically characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron mi-croscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Uv-vis spectroscopy and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) techniques. The obtained results show that the synthesized PbS NPs are nanocrystalline, size quantized and their agglomeration shows a mesoporous network of 8.7 nm in pore size. The binding nature of ACA molecules on PbS surface was studied by thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron (XPS) techniques. Results indicate that ACA acts as a soft template that restricts the growth of PbS NPs through its binding to Pb surface via nitrogen lone pair.