A family of lead clusters with precious metal cores

Cong-Cong Shu, Harry W. T. Morgan, Lei Qiao, John E. McGrady () and Zhong-Ming Sun ()
Additional contact information
Cong-Cong Shu: Nankai University
Harry W. T. Morgan: University of Oxford
Lei Qiao: Nankai University
John E. McGrady: University of Oxford
Zhong-Ming Sun: Nankai University

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Gold nanoparticles have been used for centuries, both for decoration and in medical applications. More recently, many of the major advances in cluster chemistry have involved well-defined clusters containing tens or hundreds of atoms, either with or without a ligand shell. In this paper we report the synthesis of two gold/lead clusters, [Au8Pb33]6− and [Au12Pb44]8−, both of which contain nido [Au@Pb11]3− icosahedra surrounding a core of Au atoms. Analogues of these large clusters are not found in the corresponding Ag chemistry: instead, the Ag-centered nido icosahedron, [Ag@Pb11]3−, is the only isolated product. The structural chemistry, along with the mass spectrometry which shows the existence of [Au2Pb11]2− but not [Ag2Pb11]2−, leads us to propose that the former species is the key intermediate in the growth of the larger clusters. Density functional theory indicates that secondary π-type interactions between the [Au@Pb11]3− ligands and the gold core play a significant part in stabilizing the larger clusters.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17187-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-17187-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17187-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().