General method of synthesis for metal nanoparticles

Sugar-assisted stable monometallic nanoparticles were synthesized by wet chemical method following a general scheme. Judicious manipulation of the reducing capabilities of different sugars has shown to have a bearing on the particle size that corroborates the shift of the absorbance peak positions and TEM analysis. Evaporation of the precursor solutions on the solid surface (strong metal--support interaction), led to the formation of smaller particles. Under the experimental condition, spherical nanoparticles of approximately 1, 3, 10 and 20 nm sizes were prepared reproducibly for gold, platinum, silver and palladium, respectively. Fructose has been found to be the best suited sugar for the synthesis of smaller particles and remained stable for months together.