The impact of the polar core size and external organic media composition on the micelle-micelle interactions: The effect on gold nanoparticles synthesis.

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

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 external organicmedia composition on benzyl-n-hexadecyldimethylammonium chloride (BHDC) reverse micelle (RM)interactions, the key step to nanoparticle synthesis using RMs as nanoreactors. The results show a betterinteraction between BHDC RM droplets when the external media contain toluene:hexane blends insteadof pure toluene. This organic solvent mixture enhances the material exchange between droplets and morewell defined and smaller gold nanoparticles were obtained at the two W0 studied (3 and 6). On the otherhand, 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 different morphologies and subnanometergold species production. These results are very promising for many applications. This workshows how each RM system is a unique and tunable nanoreactor.