Phase-Transfer Based Size Refining of Metal Nanoparticles from Arbitrary Particle Size Distributions

摘要

The size-dependent phase-transfer property of metal nanoparticles is used to develop a simple experimental procedure that can effectively refine the particle size from colloidal solutions prepared by wet-chemistry. The protocol calls for firstly the mixing of the metal hydrosol with an ethanol solution of dodecylamine, and then the extraction of the dodecylamine-stabilized metal nanoparticles into toluene. This method offers an effective approach to prepare metal nanoparticles with narrow size distribution from an arbitrary particle size distribution.