abstract
- Copyright © 2017 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is used as an organic biotemplate to prepare hybrid materials with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). In this study, the native rod-like TMV structure was transformed into spherical particles using a thermal treatment; subsequently, the external surface of the thermally-treated TMV (TT-TMV) were in-situ covered with AgNPs through cycles of sequential reduction using sodium borohydride. The as-grown nanoparticles show a bimodal distribution on the surface of the TT-TMVs after the fifth nucleation cycle. Results of characterization of the metallized TT-TMV by dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy accordingly show the effect of cycling on the morphology of the AgNPs/TT-TMV hybrids.