Single-crystal, faceted palladium nanoparticles with narrow size distributions can be synthesized by chemical reduction in aqueous solution and have enabled informative studies of the mechanism of palladium hydride formation using electron microscopy techniques. However, highly cited synthetic approaches typically require centrifugation of 40 liters of reaction solution per gram of product, making gram-scale batches difficult to prepare in laboratory environments and inhibiting study of macroscopic properties of the material. Similar nanoparticles have been previously produced from aqueous suspensions (as opposed to solutions) that require only about 1 liter per gram. We are pursuing a further decrease in the required volume and seeking to improve the ability to controllably adjust crystal size into the hundreds of nm where hydride formation can introduce permanent lattice defects.  We have refined the aqueous suspension approach to further decrease the reaction volume per gram of product to a few hundred mL per gram and to produce crystals in the hundreds of nm. We have begun analyzing data from macroscopic calorimetry studies of the hydride formation properties of these palladium particles to complement prior studies of single-particle hydriding.

Improved scalability of palladium nanocrystal synthesis

ACS Spring 2022

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