The thermal behaviors of Ag/polyamidoamine nanocomposites

Abstract

Ag/polyamidoamine nanocomposites were produced by photoreduction of relevant metallic salts in polyamidoamine methanol solutions under room temperature and ambient pressure. The obtained products were characterized by FTIR, XRD, TEM, TGA and DSC techniques. The results showed that Ag nanoparticles were quite uniform in size with a diameter of about 15 nm, and the amount of Ag nanoparticles could well affect the thermal stability and the glass transition temperature of polyamidoamine. As the mass ratio of Ag nanoparticles to polyamidoamine increased, the glass transition temperatures were increased, while the weight loss ratios were decreased. TGA curves indicated that the loading of Ag nanoparticles mainly influences the high temperature thermal stability of polyamidoamine. Moreover, the multistage decomposition profile of DTG curves suggested that the Ag/polyamidoamine nanocomposites of higher silver loading might contain some intermediate Ag+/polyamidoamine type of composites.