Bio-Inspired Synthesis of Bovine Serum Albumin-Conjugated Ag2Se/Se Core/Shell Heterostructure Nanoparticles at Room Temperature

Ag2Se/Se core/shell heterostructure nanoparticles (NPs) have been successfully synthesized by using silver nitrate (AgNO3) along with sodium selenosulfate (Na2SeSO3) as Se source in the presence of bovine serum albumen (BSA) as a foaming and stabilizing agent. The entire process was carried out at ambient pressure in aqueous phase at room temperature (RT). A possible mechanism to interpret the formation of the core/shell nanostructure accompanied by selenium shells transforming from amorphous Se (a-Se) into crystalline trigonal Se (t-Se) was proposed based on flourier transformation infrared (FT-IR) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) analysis. The morphology and chemical composition of these BSA-conjugated NPs have been characterized with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). In addition, the novel heterostructure was unambiguously confirmed by elemental mapping of an individual particle. The environmentally benign method would be useful for preparing bio-modified heterostructure nanomaterials at RT through the soft template effect of biomacromolecules.