Size Control of Monodisperse Prussian Blue Nanoparticles by Enforced-Nucleation and Additional-Growth Procedures in a Citrate Reduction System

Abstract

Synthesis procedures of monodisperse Prussian blue nanoparticles have been investigated to control their size in a citric acid reduction system. Two different procedures, enforced-nucleation and additional-growth ones, are applied to decrease and to increase the particle size, respectively. In the former, small amount of ascorbic acid is added in the citric acid solution as the enforced-nucleation agent, which varies the number of nuclei and thus the particle size depending on its amount. In the latter, a part of Prussian blue dispersion preliminarily prepared is introduced into the reactant solution that provides additional reaction resources for the further growth. As a result, Prussian blue nanoparticles are prepared in the range of 20−100 nm in the mean size with narrow size distribution.

Keywords:

• ascorbic acid
• citric acid
• iron(III) hexacyanoferrate(II)
• particle number control
• seed particles

Acknowledgment

The XRD measurement was carried out at Center for Analytical Instrumentation, Chiba University.