title: High-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of as-synthesised N,N'-dimethylformamide-stabilised gold nanoclusters product.
abstract: Reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) separation and analysis of polydisperse water-soluble gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) stabilised with N,N'-dimethylformamide (DMF) were investigated. Under optimal elution gradient conditions, the separation of DMF-AuNCs was monitored by absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy. The UV-vis spectral characteristics of the separated DMF-AuNCs have been captured and they do not possess distinct surface plasmon resonance bands, indicating that all DMF-AuNCs are small AuNCs. The photoluminescence emission spectra of the separated DMF-AuNCs are in the blue-light region. Moreover, cationic DMF-AuNCs are for the first time identified by ion chromatography. Our proposed RP-HPLC methodology has been successfully applied to separate AuNCs of various Au atoms as well as DMF-stabilised ligands. Finally, the composition of the separated DMF-AuNCs was confirmed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry and electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry, proving that the as-synthesised DMF-AuNCs product consists of Au₁₀⁺, Au₁₀, Au₁₁, Au₁₂, Au₁₃, and Au₁₄ NCs stabilised with various numbers of DMF ligands.
authors: Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong Baptist University, 224 Waterloo Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
authors: Shunping
authors: S
authors: Xie
authors: Man Chin
authors: MC
authors: Paau
authors: Yan
authors: Y
authors: Zhang
authors: Shaomin
authors: S
authors: Shuang
authors: Wan
authors: W
authors: Chan
authors: Martin M F
authors: MM
authors: Choi