Impact of the polar core size and external organic media composition on the micelle-micelle interactions. Effect on gold nanoparticles synthesis

GUTIERREZ, J. A.; LUNA, M. A.; CORREA N M; SILBER, J. J.; FALCONE R.D.

NEW JOURNAL OF CHEMISTRY

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY

Lugar: CAMBRIDGE; Año: 2015 vol. 39 p. 8887 - 8895

1144-0546

We report the effect of the molar ratio parameter W0 (W0 = [water]/[surfactant]) and the externalorganic media composition on benzyl-n-hexadecyldimethylammonium chloride (BHDC) reverse micelle(RM) interactions, the key step to nanoparticle synthesis using RMs as nanoreactors. The results show abetter interaction between BHDC RM droplets when the external media contain toluene:hexane blendsinstead of pure toluene. This organic solvent mixture enhances the material exchange between dropletsand more well defined and smaller gold nanoparticles were obtained at the two W0 studied (3 and 6).On the other hand, BHDC RMs created in pure toluene give a stiffer environment with poor droplet?droplet interaction, and the Cl counterions affect the growth of the particles, leading to differentmorphologies and sub-nanometer gold species production. These results are very promising for manyapplications. This work shows how each RM system is a unique and tunable nanoreactor