Synthesis
Platinum nanoparticles are made by reduction of hexachloroplatinate. A solution is rapidly stirred while a reducing agent such as hydrogen gas is added, causing platinum ions to be reduced to neutral platinum atoms. As more and more of these platinum atoms form, the solution quickly becomes supersaturated and platinum starts to precipitate in the form of sub-nanometre particles. As the reaction proceeds, platinum atoms are added to these nuclei, which grow in size. If the solution is stirred vigorously enough, the particles will be fairly uniform in size and shape. To prevent the particles from aggregating, some sort of stabilizing agent or stabilizer that sticks to the nanoparticle surface is usually added, such as sodium polyacrylate. They can be functionalized with various organic ligands to create organic-inorganic hybrid materials with advanced functionality.
Read more about this topic: Platinum Nanoparticles
Famous quotes containing the word synthesis:
“In order to begin an analysis, there must already be a synthesis present in the mind.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Our art is the finest, the noblest, the most suggestive, for it is the synthesis of all the arts. Sculpture, painting, literature, elocution, architecture, and music are its natural tools. But while it needs all of those artistic manifestations in order to be its whole self, it asks of its priest or priestess one indispensable virtue: “faith.””
—Sarah Bernhardt (1845–1923)