Reduction-Oxidation Cascade Strategy for Reforming a Au-Kerneled Gold Thiolate Nanocluster.

Gold nanoclusters protected by thiolate ligands are ideal models for investigating the structure-property correlation of nanomaterals. Introducing relatively weak coordinating ligands into gold thiolate nanoclusters and thus reforming their structures is beneficial for further releasing their activities. However, controlling the selectivity of the process is a challenging task.

Partial Phosphorization: A Strategy to Improve Some Performance(s) of Thiolated Metal Nanoclusters Without Notable Reduction of Stability.

Thiolates endow metal nanoclusters with stability while sometimes inhibit the catalytic activity due to the strong M-S interaction (M: metal atom). To improve the catalytic activity and keep the stability to some extent, one strategy is the partial phosphorization of thiolated metal nanoclusters. This is demonstrated by successful partial phosphorization of Au (SC H ) and by revealing that the products Au (SC H ) (PPh ) and Au (SC H ) (PPh ) , with varied degree of phosphorization, both show excellent activity in the photocatalytic oxidation of thioanisole without notable reduction of stability.