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A general phase-transfer protocol for metal ions and its application in nanocrystal synthesis

Nature Materials volume 8, pages 683–689 (2009)Cite this article

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 13 January 2010

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Abstract

Nanocrystals prepared in organic media can be easily self-assembled into close-packed hexagonal monolayers on solvent evaporation for various applications. However, they usually rely on the use of organometallic precursors that are soluble in organic solvents. Herein we report a general protocol to transfer metal ions from an aqueous solution to an organic medium, which involves mixing the aqueous solution of metal ions with an ethanolic solution of dodecylamine (DDA), and extracting the coordinating compounds formed between the metal ions and DDA into toluene. This approach could be applied towards transferring a wide variety of transition-metal ions with an efficiency of >95%, and enables the synthesis of a variety of metallic and semiconductor nanocrystals to be carried out in an organic medium using relatively inexpensive water-soluble metal salts as starting materials. This protocol could be easily extended to synthesize a variety of heterogeneous semiconductor/noble-metal hybrids and to nanocomposites with multiple functionalities.

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Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3: TEM images of metal nanoparticles.
Figure 4: XRD patterns.
Figure 5: Room-temperature trapping and release of SYBR Green-I by Pt hollow nanospheres.
Figure 6: PbS–Au hybrids at different Au/PbS precursor ratios.

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Change history

  • 13 January 2010

    The originally listed authors of the above Article wish to add a further two names as co-authors. The full author list, affiliations and acknowledgements have now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the Article.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Y. K. Kuan of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Singapore, for his assistance in characterizing the Pt hollow nanospheres. J.Y. and J.Y.Y. acknowledge the support by the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (Biomedical Research Council, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore). J.Y., E.H.S. and S.O.K. acknowledge the University of Toronto, the US Air Force (MURI grant to S.O.K.) and the NIH (CA1222878-01A2). E.H.S. also acknowledges the Canada Research Chairs, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, 31 Biopolis Way, The Nanos, Singapore 138669, Singapore

    Jun Yang & Jackie Y. Ying

  2. Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3G4, Canada

    Jun Yang & Shana Kelley

  3. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3G4, Canada

    Edward Sargent

  4. Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3G4, Canada

    Shana Kelley

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  1. Jun Yang
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Correspondence to Shana Kelley or Jackie Y. Ying.

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Yang, J., Sargent, E., Kelley, S. et al. A general phase-transfer protocol for metal ions and its application in nanocrystal synthesis. Nature Mater 8, 683–689 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2490

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