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Updated: Mar 9, 2026

A Simple Method for the Size Controlled Synthesis of Stable Oligomeric Clusters of Gold Nanoparticles under Ambient Conditions
Published on: February 5, 2016
The wet synthesis and quantification of ligand-free sub-nanometric Au clusters in solid matrices
Judit Oliver-Meseguer1, Irene Dominguez2, Rafael Gavara2
1Instituto de Tecnología Química, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Avda. de los Naranjos s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain. anleyva@itq.upv.es.
Abstract:
The synthesis of ligand-free sub-nanometric metal clusters on a large scale suffers typically from very low yields (<5% yield) and needs very high dilutions. Here we show that Au clusters can be prepared with ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymers (EVOH), charcoal, and different metal oxides (CeO2, Al2O3, TiO2 and ZnO) in >15% yields, as unambiguously determined using a very simple and extremely sensitive analytical reaction test.

