Sugar assisted evolution of mono- and bimetallic nanoparticles

Sugar assisted stable mono- and bimetallic nanoparticles were synthesized by wet chemical method following a general scheme. Proper manipulation of the reducing capabilities of different sugars has direct dependence on the particle size corroborating the shift of the absorbance peak positions. Under the experimental condition, the spherical nanoparticles were found to be ∼1, 3, 10 and 20 nm in diameter for gold, platinum, silver and palladium, respectively. Evaporation of the precursor solutions, led to the synthesis of smaller particles. Fructose has been found to be the best suited sugar for the synthesis of smallest particles and hence exploited for the evolution of Aucore-Agshell containing particles of ∼10 nm.