As a new and advanced type of ionic liquid analogues, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have attracted increasing attention in the past few years. Particularly, DESs have been used for the syntheses of plasmonic nanoparticles owing to their unique properties, such as structure-directing abilities, strong solvating power, non-volatility, and high thermal stability. Despite these advantages, to the best of our knowledge, the large-scale production of plasmonic nanoparticles using DESs has been rarely reported to date. In this work, we present the gram-scale synthesis of various plasmonic nanoparticles with controlled shapes and sizes using a DES. Importantly, the synthesis of plasmonic nanoparticles and the polymerization of the DES take place simultaneously, resulting in the stabilization of highly concentrated nanoparticles in a solid matrix. Acrylamide is used to play a role as a monomer and a hydrogen bond donor in a DES. In addition, the overall synthesis of the nanoparticles in the DES takes only 20 min in one-pot. The intense optical properties of the nanoparticles are investigated, demonstrating the localized surface plasmon resonance of noble metal nanostructures. The molecular weight distribution of polyacrylamide in the solid matrix is analyzed using gel permeability chromatography, indicating the roles of the reagents participating in the synthesis reactions. Moreover, we demonstrate that bimetallic nanoparticles can be synthesized in the DES. Importantly, we demonstrate that the production of the noble metal nanoparticles using the DES could be as large as a few grams, indicating that the method reported in this work is aimed at truly practical applications, such as molecular diagnostics and therapeutics. As an example of applications that utilize a large number of nanoparticles, we demonstrate a concept of transparent displays using the synthesized nanoparticles on a round glass plate with a diameter of 10 cm.

One-pot large-scale synthesis of polymer-capped plasmonic nanoparticles in a deep eutectic solvent

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.