Metallic nanoparticles are often obtained by chemical decomposition or reactive techniques involving the extensive usage of harmful reducing or stabilizing agents. A facile green synthesis technique resulting in readily exploitable nanoparticle dispersion in ionic liquid without the use of any additional agents is reported here. 1-Propyl- 3- Methyl Imidazolium Iodide (PMIM(I)) is a non-volatile, thermally stable and non-toxic ionic liquid. This eco-friendly liquid is used as the substrate for thermal evaporation of gold to obtain stable gold nanoparticles. On being examined by Transmission Electron Microscopy the high monodispersity in their sizes was revealed. The byproduct free, 'clean' processing technique helps in obtaining un-contaminated particles. The thermal evaporation method used (for the generation of metallic vapor) plays a significant role in the difference in kinetics of the formation and growth of nanoparticles, unlike the widely reported sputtering technique for vapor generation. The formed particles are deposited only on the top surface of the liquid. Thus the nucleation and growth of the particles can be considered to have occurred by surface diffusion process only. A deeper investigation into the formation kinetics has the potential application for synthesizing other nanomaterials via this environmental friendly approach.
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