Phase Transfer of Noble Metal Nanoparticles to Organic Solvents Marco Lista,*,† Dylan Zhe Liu,‡ and Paul Mulvaney† †
School of Chemistry and Bio21 Institute and ‡Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: Nanoparticles are finding increasing application because of their unusual optical properties. Processing these materials would be drastically simplified if they could be routinely dispersed into a wide variety of polar and nonpolar solvents. We report the synthesis of a new bidentate thiol ligand, (Z)-octadec-9-en-1-yl-5-(1,2-dithiolan-3-yl)pentanoate, and demonstrate its ability to phase transfer gold nanospheres (5−70 nm), nanorods, and silver nanoparticles efficiently from water into various organic solvents. The protocol obviates the need for solid-phase steps or polymeric ligands. Electronic spectra and electron micrographs demonstrate that the particles are fully dispersed in a variety of organic solvents after transfer.
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∼20 nm gold particles.13,14 Ligands that can transfer small particles (
Phase transfer of noble metal nanoparticles to organic solvents.
Nanoparticles are finding increasing application because of their unusual optical properties. Processing these materials would be drastically simplifi...