X-ray Spectroscopy Studies of Ligand-protected and Zeolite-confined Silver Nanoclusters

Abstract

Ultrasmall silver nanoparticles, also known as silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs), are of interest because of their ultrahigh surface-to-volume ratio and strong quantum size effect. In this work, the studies of Ag NCs with ligand protection and zeolite confinement are presented. X-ray spectroscopy techniques were employed as major tools to characterize the structure and electronic properties of these protected Ag NCs. The site-specific analysis of ligand-protected Ag25 NCs gives an in-depth understanding of the electronic and bonding properties of each site in the NCs, which offers a detailed picture on the structure-property relationship of the NCs. The study of zeolite-confined Ag NCs suggests their structure and electronic properties can be tuned by controlling the concentration of silver ions and types of zeolites. A preliminary catalytic study showed that these NCs prepared in this work exhibit promising catalytic activity, and implied that they could be promising materials for catalytic applications.