Metal-Metal Phosphide Synthesis—Selective Phosphidation of Ag-Cu Nanocrystals

When and Where

Apr 12, 2023
5:00pm - 7:00pm

Moscone West, Level 1, Exhibit Hall

Presenter

Xiao Ma

Abdessadek Lachgar

Co-Author(s)

Xiao Ma¹,Abdessadek Lachgar¹

Wake Forest University¹

Abstract

Xiao Ma¹,Abdessadek Lachgar¹

Wake Forest University¹

The incorporation of phosphorous into metal nanoparticles is an important strategy to affect material's structure and bonding, its electronic structure, and its catalytic property. Colloidal synthesis, hot injection in particular, is well known for its versatility and can be an alternative approach for Janus nanomaterials synthesis. In this work, we present the colloidal synthesis of metal-metal phosphides, by preparing metal-metal nanoparticles followed by selective phosphidation. We applied this strategy to convert Ag-Cu to Ag-Cu3P. Ag-Cu nanoparticles were prepared using W(CO)6 as the reducing reagent as previously described by Quan et al.1 Phosphidation of Cu nanoparticles was performed using tris(trimethylsilyl)phosphine and trioctylphosphine as previously reported by Schaak et al.2 Partial phosphidation of the Cu-Ag nanoparticles led to the formation of Ag-Cu3P nanocrystals. The materials before and after phosphidation were used as electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution in 0.1 M NaOH. The onset potential of Ag-Cu3P is 200 mV smaller than that for Ag-Cu, indicating that incorporation of phosphorus into metal-metal nanocrystals not only enhances their stability but also their catalytic activity. The phosphidation conversion described here can be achieved when substituting Cu by Ni, Co, Fe, and substituting Ag by Au if the Janus metal-metal can be obtained. (1) Zhao, X.; Di, Q.; Li, M.; Yang, Q.; Zhang, Z.; Guo, X.; Fan, X.; Deng, K.; Chen, W.; Zhang, J.; Fang, J.; Quan, Z. Generalized Synthesis of Uniform Metal Nanoparticles Assisted with Tungsten Hexacarbonyl. Chem. Mater. 2019, 31 (12), 4325–4329. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.9b00219. (2) Hernández-Pagán, E. A.; Lord, R. W.; Veglak, J. M.; Schaak, R. E. Incorporation of Metal Phosphide Domains into Colloidal Hybrid Nanoparticles. Inorg. Chem. 2021, 60 (7), 4278–4290. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.0c03826.