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Simple Determination of Gold Nanocrystal Dimensions by Analytical Ultracentrifugation via Surface Ligand-Solvent Density Matching

Analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) is a powerful technique to observe colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) directly in solution and obtain critical information about their physical-chemical properties. Nevertheless, a more comprehensive implementation of AUC for the characterisation of such a class of cry...

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Autores principales: González-Rubio, Guillermo, Hilbert, Holger, Rosenberg, Rose, Ni, Bing, Fuhrer, Lisa, Cölfen, Helmut
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8228700/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34071534
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano11061427
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author González-Rubio, Guillermo
Hilbert, Holger
Rosenberg, Rose
Ni, Bing
Fuhrer, Lisa
Cölfen, Helmut
author_facet González-Rubio, Guillermo
Hilbert, Holger
Rosenberg, Rose
Ni, Bing
Fuhrer, Lisa
Cölfen, Helmut
author_sort González-Rubio, Guillermo
collection PubMed
description Analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) is a powerful technique to observe colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) directly in solution and obtain critical information about their physical-chemical properties. Nevertheless, a more comprehensive implementation of AUC for the characterisation of such a class of crystalline colloids has been traditionally impaired by the requirement of having a priori knowledge of the complex, multilayered structure formed by NC in solution. This includes the nature (density and mass) of the surface ligands (SLs) that provide NC colloidal stability and the shell of solvent molecules formed on it. Herein, we propose a methodology to determine the NCs size by using SLs with a density equal to that of the solvent. Thereby, the buoyancy force of the SL shell is neutral, and the density of the NCs is sufficient a priori knowledge to calculate their related mass and size distributions. The simplicity and reliability of the method are evaluated with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) stabilized spherical gold NCs (AuNCs) of dimensions ranging from 1 to 17 nm. The proposed method has great potential to be transferred to any non-crystalline and crystalline colloids of different nature and composition, which have a density that is equal to the bulk and can be stabilized by SLs having a density that matches that of the solvent.
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spelling pubmed-82287002021-06-26 Simple Determination of Gold Nanocrystal Dimensions by Analytical Ultracentrifugation via Surface Ligand-Solvent Density Matching González-Rubio, Guillermo Hilbert, Holger Rosenberg, Rose Ni, Bing Fuhrer, Lisa Cölfen, Helmut Nanomaterials (Basel) Article Analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) is a powerful technique to observe colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) directly in solution and obtain critical information about their physical-chemical properties. Nevertheless, a more comprehensive implementation of AUC for the characterisation of such a class of crystalline colloids has been traditionally impaired by the requirement of having a priori knowledge of the complex, multilayered structure formed by NC in solution. This includes the nature (density and mass) of the surface ligands (SLs) that provide NC colloidal stability and the shell of solvent molecules formed on it. Herein, we propose a methodology to determine the NCs size by using SLs with a density equal to that of the solvent. Thereby, the buoyancy force of the SL shell is neutral, and the density of the NCs is sufficient a priori knowledge to calculate their related mass and size distributions. The simplicity and reliability of the method are evaluated with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) stabilized spherical gold NCs (AuNCs) of dimensions ranging from 1 to 17 nm. The proposed method has great potential to be transferred to any non-crystalline and crystalline colloids of different nature and composition, which have a density that is equal to the bulk and can be stabilized by SLs having a density that matches that of the solvent. MDPI 2021-05-28 /pmc/articles/PMC8228700/ /pubmed/34071534 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano11061427 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
González-Rubio, Guillermo
Hilbert, Holger
Rosenberg, Rose
Ni, Bing
Fuhrer, Lisa
Cölfen, Helmut
Simple Determination of Gold Nanocrystal Dimensions by Analytical Ultracentrifugation via Surface Ligand-Solvent Density Matching
title Simple Determination of Gold Nanocrystal Dimensions by Analytical Ultracentrifugation via Surface Ligand-Solvent Density Matching
title_full Simple Determination of Gold Nanocrystal Dimensions by Analytical Ultracentrifugation via Surface Ligand-Solvent Density Matching
title_fullStr Simple Determination of Gold Nanocrystal Dimensions by Analytical Ultracentrifugation via Surface Ligand-Solvent Density Matching
title_full_unstemmed Simple Determination of Gold Nanocrystal Dimensions by Analytical Ultracentrifugation via Surface Ligand-Solvent Density Matching
title_short Simple Determination of Gold Nanocrystal Dimensions by Analytical Ultracentrifugation via Surface Ligand-Solvent Density Matching
title_sort simple determination of gold nanocrystal dimensions by analytical ultracentrifugation via surface ligand-solvent density matching
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8228700/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34071534
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano11061427
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