In Situ Liquid Cell Transmission Electron Microscopy Observation of Dynamic Process of Oleic Acid Emulsion with Gold Nanorods

Oleic acid (OA) emulsion is widely used in nanomaterial synthesis and applications. The emulsion droplets can serve as template scaffolds for nanoparticle self-organization, while adding nanoparticles to the emulsion is beneficial to the development of new intelligent emulsions. In this study, by di...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of physical chemistry. C 2020-11, Vol.124 (47), p.26018-26025
Main Authors: Wang, Chuanzhen, Chen, Xin, Wu, Yulian, Li, Yan, Cheng, Siyu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
C: Physical Processes in Nanomaterials and Nanostructures
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Summary:Oleic acid (OA) emulsion is widely used in nanomaterial synthesis and applications. The emulsion droplets can serve as template scaffolds for nanoparticle self-organization, while adding nanoparticles to the emulsion is beneficial to the development of new intelligent emulsions. In this study, by direct dynamic observation with in situ liquid cell transmission electron microscopy (LC-TEM), it is found that the sizes of OA emulsion droplets incorporated with gold nanorods (Au NRs) were significantly bigger than those without Au NRs, as well as they tend to grow up with time. Most OA growth follows an Ostwald ripening mechanism, while certain Au NR distribution on the OA surface may lead to anti-Ostwald ripening behavior. At the OA/water/SiNx window triple phase boundary, Au NRs prefer to form “end-to-end” chain structures, while at the OA/water double phase boundary or inside an OA droplet, they prefer to form more compact clusters. These results demonstrate that the OA emulsion droplets may guide the assembly of nanomaterials into different nanostructures, and understanding and controlling them might contribute to the development of advanced self-assembled noble metal nanostructures with new functions. High-resolution in situ characterization of nanomaterials in emulsion systems will provide new opportunities for the research and development of new self-assembled materials.
ISSN:1932-7447
1932-7455
DOI:10.1021/acs.jpcc.0c07689