Effective yet versatile synthetic strategies for size-tunable metal nanoclusters (NCs) are scarce. This has hampered the development of this unique class of nanomaterials. Here, a general protocol is reported for the synthesis of high-quality metal NCs protected by a variety of organic ligands (e.g., selenolate, thiolate, and phosphine) based on a miscible-solvent-assisted phase transfer between water and organic solution. This method is demonstrated to be facile, rapid (≤3 h), scalable (gram-scale), and versatile. The size of the selenolated and thiolated Au NCs can be tuned from Au10 to Au61 by simply varying the miscible solvent in proportions and types. The advantages of this method, such as quick phase separation and no need for purification treatment, enable real-time monitoring of metal NC growth within the NaBH4 reduction system. The results show that the size of Au NCs gradually increases with increasing valence electron count by a stepwise 2x e- hopping mechanism (x = 0-5), i.e., 0 e- → 2 e- → 4 e- → 8 e- → 18 e- → 22 e- → 32 e- .

中文翻译：

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具有各种尺寸的单分子配体保护的金属纳米团簇的可溶溶剂辅助的两相合成。

尺寸可调金属纳米簇（NCs）的有效而通用的合成策略十分稀缺。这阻碍了这种独特的纳米材料类别的发展。在此，据报道，基于在水和有机溶液之间的可混溶溶剂辅助相转移，合成了受多种有机配体（例如，硒代酸盐，硫醇盐和膦）保护的高质量金属NC的通用方案。事实证明该方法简便，快速（≤3 h），可扩展（克级）和通用性强。可以通过简单地改变比例和类型来改变可混溶的溶剂，将硒化和硫醇化的Au NCs的大小从Au10调整为Au61。这种方法的优点（例如快速的相分离和无需纯化处理）可实现NaBH4还原系统中金属NC生长的实时监控。