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Separating Growth from Nucleation for Facile Control over the Size and Shape of Palladium Nanocrystals
Author(s) -
Janssen Annemieke,
Shi Yifeng,
Xia Younan
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.202001626
Subject(s) - nucleation , nanocrystal , materials science , bromide , octahedron , nanotechnology , chemical engineering , palladium , crystallography , chemical physics , chemistry , inorganic chemistry , catalysis , crystal structure , organic chemistry , engineering
In order to maximize the performance of nanocrystals in a specific application, it is necessary to control both their size and shape. Here we report a one‐pot protocol that allows us to separate growth from nucleation for achieving better control over the size and shape of Pd nanocrystals. The two processes are temporally separated from each other, although the synthesis is carried out in the same reaction container. Size control is achieved by simply varying the ratio between the amounts of precursor allocated to the growth and nucleation processes. With the involvement of seeds at a fixed number, increasing the amount of precursor for growth leads to increasingly larger nanocrystals. Shape control is made possible by varying the capping agent, with bromide leading to a cubic shape and citrate inducing the formation of an octahedral shape. The synthesis can also be scaled up by at least tenfold without compromising the quality.