ORIGINAL PAPER Preparation of Poly(acrylic acid)/silver nanocomposite by simultaneous polymerization–reduction approach for antimicrobial application Samia Chalal & Nabila Haddadine & Naima Bouslah & Ahmed Benaboura Received: 7 August 2012 / Accepted: 4 November 2012 / Published online: 14 November 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012 Abstract Poly(acrylic acid)/Silver, PAA/Ag, nanocomposite, was in-situ synthesized by radical polymerisation of acrylic acid (AA) monomers, using AIBN as initiator and ethanol as solvent in presence of silver nitrate AgNO 3 nanoparticles. It was found that polymerisation of (AA) monomers and reduction of silver ions occurred simultaneously, thereby leading to the formation of the PAA/Ag nanocomposite. The obtained material was characterized by infrared (IR), UV-visible, photo-luminescence measurements, X-Ray powder diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Strong interactions between silver ions and carboxylic groups of PAA, were identified by FT-IR spectroscopy. Highly luminescent single colloidal silver nano- particles under blue excitation were detected by photolumines- cence spectroscopy. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), image revealed that silver nanoparticles were well dispersed in PAA matrix. X-ray powder diffraction XRD pattern, showed the appearance of small picks corresponding to the face centred cubic (f.c.c.) silver phase. Furthermore the antimicrobial activity of Ag nanoparticles was investigated against, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans micro-organisms. It was found that the carboxylic groups from the acrylic acid favour silver ions mobility in the organic matrix. Thus they are expected to be liable to the enhancement of the antimicrobial surface activity in this hybrid material. The results suggest that PAA/ Ag nanocomposite can be used as effective growth inhibitors in various micro-organisms, making them appropriate to di- verse medical devices and antimicrobial control systems. Keywords Poly(acrylic acid) . Silver nanoparticles . Optical proprieties . FT-IR spectroscopy . Antimicrobial effect Introduction The interest to the nanocomposites, having uniform size dis- tribution of inorganic nanoparticles into the polymer matrix, increased substantively in the last two decades [1–5], and both physical and chemical methods have been reported in the literature. In physical approach polymerisation of monomer and formation of metal nanoparticles were separately per- formed and then the polymer and the nanoparticles were mechanically mixed to form composites. For chemical proce- dure, the choice of the reducing agent like hydrazine [6], formaldehyde [7] or γ-radiation [8], seems to be the most important factor. Among the metals, silver nanoparticles are known for their effective advantages and besides their utility in biological labelling [9, 10], electrical conductivity [11, 12], antimicrobial effect [13, 14], optical proprieties [15–17] oxi- dative catalysis [18, 19], it was found that noble metals clusters display intense visible luminescence. The appearance of their strong luminescence proprieties is expected to yield new insights into the practical applications. Silver is a commercially available metal and its nano- particles are greater then other nanosized metal particles according to their excellent proprieties. It was also reported that silver nanoparticles were introduced to a wide range of medical applications and water purifying systems [20, 21]. Furthermore silver nanoparticles proved to be non-toxic and eco-friendly antibacterial agents. Nevertheless the problem of their weak binding proprieties overcome via preparation of stabilized nanoparticles in polymer matrix [22, 23]. Hence the dispersion of the nanoparticles homogeneously into the polymer matrix is extremely difficult, due to the aptitude of the nanoparticles to gather with each other lead- ing to the formation of silver clusters and also to the high viscosity of the polymer. Thus, the in-situ polymerisation allows the nanoparticles to disperse homogeneously in poly- mer matrix especially when these syntheses were carried out S. Chalal : N. Haddadine (*) : N. Bouslah : A. Benaboura Laboratoire de Synthèse Macromoléculaire et Thio-organique Macromoléculaire, Faculté de Chimie, U.S.T.H.B., BP: 32, El Alia. Bab Ezzouar, Algiers, Algeria 16111 e-mail: n_haddadine@yahoo.fr J Polym Res (2012) 19:24 DOI 10.1007/s10965-012-0024-1