Experimental and DFT calculation study of interaction between silver nanoparticle and 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquid

The mechanism of stabilization of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) by 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquid (IL) is elucidated from experimental spectroscopic investigations and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. FTIR spectrum of the synthesized IL stabilized silver nanoparticles reveals small red shift in B–F stretching frequency while C–H stretching remains unshifted. There is no shift in NMR peaks of IL before and after the synthesis of IL stabilized Ag NPs. This suggests that Ag NPs are surrounded by anions of ILs. The optimized structure obtained from density functional theory (DFT) calculations also shows the anionic part of the IL surrounding the Ag nanocluster. This is supported by the IR frequency data calculated using DFT. The calculated binding energy and interaction energy obtained between cluster and IL is considerably attractive. Density of State (DOS) calculation shows that the HOMO-LUMO gap of the Ag cluster-IL composite is significantly lesser than that of the IL alone.