Easy and Fast Phase Transfer of CTAB Stabilised Gold Nanoparticles from Water to Organic Phase

Spheric and anisotropic gold nanoparticles (GNPs) such as rods, stars or nanoprism prepared using hexadecyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as the stabilising agent have received a great deal of interest in the last years. The literature procedures exploited lead to GNPs in aqueous solution. We herein describe a fast, efficient, and cheap method to transfer particles of different shapes from water into toluene solution via ligand exchange (CTAB to dodecanethiol), which was mediated by acetone as a cosolvent. Absorption spectra and TEM-pictures before and after the transfer revealed that the particles survived the transfer intact and without change in shape.