Digestive-Ripening-Facilitated Nanoengineering of Diverse Bimetallic Nanostructures

From an ingenious methodology for obtaining monodispersity, digestive ripening has advanced to become an outstanding solution-based synthesis route to realizing various bimetallic heterostructures. This feature article attempts to provide an overview of the various facets of the codigestive ripening process and the array of heterostructures that could be achieved by this technique. We briefly discuss the mechanism of digestive ripening in the case of monometallic elements and use that understanding to elucidate the mechanism of the less well established codigestive ripening strategy for designing bimetallic nanostructures. The systems studied by our group in the past decade for the fabrication of diverse heterostructures are highlighted in this article. The exploitation of digestive ripening to realize monodisperse bimetallic nanostructures by several other groups is also featured. In addition to digestive ripening agents, the significance of tuning various reaction parameters and its consequences on the final structure and morphology have also been discussed. Additionally, efforts based on theoretical studies to gain insight into the factors which dominate the mechanism of the digestive ripening process have also been covered. This article is a contribution to the understanding of the codigestive ripening methodology and a demonstration of its tremendous potential in achieving the desired bimetallic heteronanostructures.