Kevin Yehl teaches me his mad skillz for particle making before graduating!
This post chronicles my FIRST ATTEMPT at making Kevin's 13 nanometer gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)!! I've been wanting to do it for two years -- and I was SO EXCITED!! I am going to repeat the procedure next Tuesday to see if I can get them to be a little more pure. By TEM, it seems some of these are fused.
Glassware and Materials Needed
500 ml flask (for gold salt solution)
100 ml flask or beaker (to hold sodium citrate soln before it's needed)
condenser
filter funnel
500 ml flask that attached to filter funnel
0.45 um acetate filter
oil bath
magnetic stir / hot plate
oval stir bar (for gold salt soln)
paper clip / stir bar (for oil)
Chemicals
aqua regia
hydrogen tetrochloroaurate(III) trihydrate
sodium citrate
Nanopure water
Step #1. Rinse the glassware used for making the particles with aqua regia to remove all trace metals -- VERY DANGEROUS
Quote from Wikipedia: "The mixture is formed by freshly mixing concentrated nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, optimally in a volume ratio of 1:3. It was named so because it can dissolve the noble metals gold and platinum."