Facile aqueous-phase synthesis of uniform palladium nanoparticles of various shapes and sizes

Abstract

An efficient aqueous-phase synthesis of uniform palladium nanoparticles from the reduction of Pd salts using triblock Pluronic copolymers is investigated. The particle size and shape of Pd nanoparticles by varying the reaction conditions have been controlled and these palladium nanoparticles as a catalyst for Suzuki cross-coupling reactions are used. The palladium nanoparticles were synthesized simply by mixing aqueous solutions of palladium salts and Pluronic copolymer. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) confirmed the generation of highly crystalline nanoparticles with a spherical shape and an average diameter of (4.8±0.5) nm. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern of the nanoparticles revealed a face-centered cubic (fcc) Pd crystal structure. The synthetic procedure is very simple and can be readily applied to large-scale production.