Abstract
PhD. (Chemistry)
Well-defined palladium and platinum nanoparticles were synthesized by two template methods, namely dendrimer template and reverse microemulsions. For dendrimer template, three dendrimers, generation 4, 5, and 6 hydroxyl terminated poly(amidoamine) dendrimers (PAMAM), G4-OH, G5-OH, and G6-OH, were used as stabilizing agent, with PdCl4 2- or PtCl4 2- metal ions to dendrimer ratio of 40, 80, and 160, respectively. For reverse microemulsions, we employed water/AOT surfactant/isooctane system with water to surfactant ratios (ω0) of 5, 10, and 13, capped with thiol, to produce Pd and Pt nanoparticles. A total of twelve catalysts were characterized by techniques such as UV-Vis spectroscopy, TEM, EDX, and p-XRD. In the dendrimer template method, the synthesis of Pd and Pt nanoparticles in lower concentrations produced smaller sizes with narrower size distributions (2.02 ± 0.45 ~ 2.35 ± 0.58 nm Pd nanoparticles, 1.90 ± 0.44 nm ~ 2.48 ± 0.60 nm Pt nanoparticles) compared to those in higher concentrations (2.74 ± 0.44 ~ 3.32 ± 0.86 nm Pd nanoparticles, 2.81 ± 0.70 nm ~ 3.03 ± 0.47 nm Pt nanoparticles). In the case of thiol-capped Pd and Pt nanoparticles by reverse microemulsions, the range of average particle sizes were 3.47 - 7.51 nm and 3.51 - 4.23 nm for Pd and Pt nanoparticles, respectively. This indicated that a wider size regime was obtained by the reverse microemulsion method as compared to the dendrimer template method. Overall, smaller sizes with narrower size distributions were achieved by using the dendrimer-templated synthetic method rather than reverse microemulsions for both Pd and Pt nanoparticles.