ORIGINAL PAPER A new method for in situ synthesis of Ag–TiO 2 nanocomposite particles on polyester/cellulose fabric by photoreduction and self-cleaning properties Zahra Moridi Mahdieh . Shahla Shekarriz . Faramarz Afshar Taromi . Majid Montazer Received: 27 October 2017 / Accepted: 1 February 2018 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract An efficient strategy was designed to make Ag–TiO 2 nanoparticles on textile fabric by a facile single-step in situ method without adding any chem- ical agents. The photoreduction method was used to the synthesis of nanoparticles. The polyester/cellulose fabric was immersed in a suspension containing TiO 2 nanoparticles/AgNO 3 and then squeezed. The padded fabric was exposed directly to ultra violet (UV) light irradiation. Diffuse reflectance spectra confirmed the creation of plasmon peak for synthesized Ag–TiO 2 at 460 nm and the more absorbance from the UV to the visible region. The elemental analysis shows the formation of the metallic silver on TiO 2 nanoparticles surface by the in situ synthesis method, as evidenced by X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray spec- troscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The morphological properties and nanoparticles distribu- tion on the fabric showed Ag–TiO 2 nanoparticles coating with even distribution and the average particle size of 27 ± 5 nm that was confirmed by field emission-scanning electron microscope images and map analysis. The Ag–TiO 2 treated fabric presented remarkable photocatalytic activities through discol- oration of methylene blue stain under sunlight, UVA (400–320 nm), and UVC (290–100 nm) irradiation. Keywords Ag–TiO 2 nano particles  In-situ synthesis  Photoreduction  Polyester/cellulose fabric  Self-cleaning properties Introduction The photocatalysts are interesting materials because of having several applications including self-cleaning, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal effects also pollution removal. The photocatalytic oxidation is a clean process that causes the degradation of the pollutants by photochemical reactions. The photocatalytic pro- cess is based on the generation of highly reactive radicals (Huang et al. 2016). Subsequently, photocat- alysts lead to the mineralization of contaminants under photo irradiation (Jiang et al. 2011). Titanium dioxide Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-018-1694-6) con- tains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Z. Moridi Mahdieh  F. Afshar Taromi Department of Polymer Engineering and Color Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology, P.O. Box 15875-4413, Tehran, Iran Z. Moridi Mahdieh  S. Shekarriz (&) Color and Polymer Research Center, Amirkabir University of Technology, P.O. Box 15875-4413, Tehran, Iran e-mail: shahlashekarriz@aut.ac.ir; shahlashekarriz2@gmail.com M. Montazer Department of Textile Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, P.O. Box 15875-4413, Tehran, Iran 123 Cellulose https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-018-1694-6