Recently, it is one of the important research fields to develop the green synthesis method for the noble metal nanoparticles with natural biopolymers. In this paper, we reported a facile synthesis of silver nanoparticles by using silk sericin (SS) as a reductant and dispersant. The effect of reaction conditions like temperature, pH value, and SS/Ag^＋ molar ratio on the Ag nanoparticle formation was investigated using UV-Vis spectrophotometer, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results showed that the homogeneous and mono-dispersed Ag nanoparticles could be obtained. Moreover, the increase of pH value and reaction temperature could accelerate the Ag^＋ reduction rate with the decrease of particle size while the SS/Ag^＋ molar ratio would only affect the nanoparticle size.

Key words: silver nanoparticles, silk sericin, green synthesis, reductant, dispersant