Rapidly Characterizing the Growth of Au Nanoparticles by CE

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a capillary electrophoresis (CE)-based method for the rapid characterization of Au nanoparticles (NPs) prepared through seed-assisted synthesis. We effected the CE separation of these Au NPs using a mixed buffer of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS; 70 mM) and 3-(cyclohexylamino)-1-propanesulfonic acid (CAPS; 10 mM) at pH 10.0 under an applied potential of 20 kV. A linear relationship (R 2 = 0.985) existed between the electrophoretic mobilities and the sizes of the Au NPs within a range of diameters from 5.3 to 59.9 nm; the relative standard deviations of these electrophoretic mobilities were below 0.9%. When using these conditions to analyze the products of seed-assisted syntheses, we found that the rate of addition of the reducing agent affected the size distribution of the NPs dramatically. CE analysis also revealed that the presence of NaOH in the synthesis medium minimized the sizes of the Au NPs. When using these conditions to analyze the Au NPs produced through seed-assisted synthesis, a good correlation existed between the sizes obtained using CE and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Based on these findings, CE appears to be an efficient tool for characterizing the sizes of NPs fabricated through seed-assisted synthesis.