Chemistry of silver aggregates in aqueous solution: non-metallic oligomers and metallic particles

✍ Scribed by A. Henglein; P. Mulvaney; T. Linnert

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 313 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0013-4686
• DOI: 10.1016/0013-4686(91)85037-8

✦ Synopsis

A&met-Metals

and semiconductors experience drastic changes in their optical and catalytic properties when they are prepared as extremely small particles (_ 1 nm) in aqueous solution as a transition takes place from metallic or semiconducting to molecular behaviour. In recent years, the changes have been studied thoroughly for a great number of semiconductor materials. In the case of the metals, such studies were hampered as there was no method available for the preparation of oligomeric non-metallic clusters in solution. However, silver clusters have recently been found to be formed as long-lived intermediates during the reduction of silver ions when the reduction is carried out in the presence of a polyanion. Some chemical reactions of these clusters as well as of larger metallic silver particles (-4 nm) are described.