Ion exchange is a power tool to obtain nanomaterials with metastable phases, sizes, and shapes that are difficult to access through direct synthesis.1 In the copper iron sulfide nanoparticle2 system, the sulfide ion lattice spacing and pattern is broadly tunable through variation in the amount of iron from 0 to 25% of the cations. It was hypothesized that if differences in structure were retained upon cation exchange, this would be a useful set of starting materials to access novel forms of metal chalcogenide particles. To test this hypothesis, cation exchange with divalent zinc ions was carried out with a series of different copper iron sulfide compositions. Using an established procedure for synthesizing copper iron sulfide nanoparticles, these particles were treated with zinc chloride and trioctylphosphine in an octadecene solvent. The effects of structure and composition of the original copper iron sulfide nanoparticles on the resultant cation-exchanged nanoparticles was investigated by PXRD, TEM, and ICP-AES. Alteration of the amount of iron in the original particles had a small effect on the lattice spacing, but a much more pronounced effect on the composition and the visible absorption behavior. A series of different reaction conditions were explored, revealing that water accelerates the rate of cation exchange. 1. (a) H. Li, M. Zanella, A. Genovese, M. Povia, A. Falqui, C. Giannini and L. Manna, Nano Lett., 2011, 11, 4964–4970. (b) J. M. Hodges, K. Kletetschka, J. L. Fenton, C. G. Read and R. E. Schaak, Angew. Chem., 2015, 127, 8793–8796. 2. A. M. Wiltrout, N. J. Freymeyer, T. Machani, D. P. Rossi and K. E. Plass, J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 19286.

Cation exchange of copper iron sulfide nanoparticles

251st National Meeting (2016)

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