Electron transfer reaction between Au25 nanocluster and phenothiazine-tetrachloro-p-benzoquinone complex

•Au25 nanoclusters can transfer an electron to a donor–acceptor complex.•PTZ–TCBQ complex cannot oxidate Au25 to Au25+.•Single-electron signal of reduced complex is difficult to live for a long time.

Single-electron transfer (SET) between donor-acceptor complex PTZ–TCBQ (phenothiazine：tetrachloro-p-benzoquinone = 1/1) and thiol-stabilized gold nanoclusters Au25(SC2H4Ph)18−TOA+ (abbreviated as Au25−) is firstly researched here. Cyclic voltammetry (CV), UV–vis spectroscopy, electron spin resonance (ESR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) are utilized to study their electron transfer reaction. The characteristic results show only one-electron transfer from Au25− to the complex, and the excess amount of PTZ–TCBQ complex cannot oxidate Au250 further as 1HNMR observed. So those results indicate that this well defined gold nanoclusters with a molecular-like redox behavior as an electron donor can be applied as a solar photocatalytic nanomaterial, SET catalyst and so on.

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