Abstract

Highly dispersed colloidal gold (Au) nanoparticles were synthesized at room temperature using glow discharge plasma within only 5 min. The prepared Au colloids were characterized with UV–visible absorption spectra (UV–vis), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) equipped with an energy dispersion X-ray spectrometer (EDX). UV–vis, XPS and EDX results confirmed that Au3+ ions in HAuCl4 solution could be effectively reduced into the metallic state at room temperature with the glow discharge plasma. TEM images showed that Au nanoparticles were highly dispersed. The size of colloidal Au nanoparticles could be easily tuned in the nanometer range by adjusting the initial concentration of HAuCl4 solution. Moreover, the as-synthesized Au colloids (dav = 3.64 nm) exhibited good catalytic activity for glucose oxidation. The nucleation and growth of colloidal Au particles under the influence of the plasma was closely related with the high-energy electrons generated by glow discharge plasma.

Highlights

  • In the last decades, metal nanoparticles have attracted increasing interest because of their unique properties compared to bulk metals and their promising applications in catalysis, gas sensors, electronic/optical devices, medical diagnosis, etc. [1–3]

  • The size of colloidal Au nanoparticles could be tuned in the nanometer range by adjusting the initial concentration of HAuCl4 solution

  • Before the plasma reduction (Fig. 2a), the solution displayed a strong absorption band at 217 nm and a shoulder at 287 nm, both of which were due to the ligandto-metal charge transfer (LMCT) bands of [AuCl4]- ions between gold and chloro ligands [19–21]

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Summary

Introduction

Metal nanoparticles have attracted increasing interest because of their unique properties compared to bulk metals and their promising applications in catalysis, gas sensors, electronic/optical devices, medical diagnosis, etc. [1–3]. Abstract Highly dispersed colloidal gold (Au) nanoparticles were synthesized at room temperature using glow discharge plasma within only 5 min. Ions in HAuCl4 solution could be effectively reduced into the metallic state at room temperature with the glow discharge plasma.

Results
Conclusion

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