Solvent: A Key in Digestive Ripening for Monodisperse Au Nanoparticles

This work has mainly investigated the influence of the solvent on the nanoparticles distribution in digestive ripening. The experiments suggested that the solvents played a key role in digestive ripening of Au nanoparticles (Au NPs). For the benzol solvents, the resulting size distribution of Au NPs was inversely related to the solvent polarity. It may be interpreted by the low Gibbs free energy of nanoparticles in the high polarity medium, which was supposedly in favor of reducing the nanoparticles distribution. Through digestive ripening in the highly polar benzol solvent of p-chlorotoluene, monodisperse Au NPs with relative standard deviation (RSD) of 4.8% were achieved. This indicated that digestive ripening was an effective and practical way to prepare high-quality nanoparticles, which holds great promise for the nanoscience and nanotechnology. [Figure: see text] ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1797-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.