Nanoscale alloys in 4 easy steps:

1. Dissolve soluble compounds, containing the metals of interest, in extremely low concentrations.

• We tried two seperate combinations, one of silver nitrate and copper (II) nitrate (resulting in a copper-silver alloy), and, one of Paladium (IV) nitrate and silver nitrate (resulting in a paladium-silver alloy).

2. Add a capping ligand.

• The capping ligand you choose helps to control the particle size and halt particle growth within a desired size range.
• There are various ligands to chose from, adensosine monophosphate (AMP), adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and several other common polymers.
• We chose to use ATP.

3. Place the solution in a flask and bubble with nitrogen for at least half an hour. Seal the flask as you continue to bubble nitrogen through the solution.

• Remember one of the properties that changes is the potential. This means that the metals tend to react with oxygen very, very quickly!
• Oxygen will keep the metals in an ionic state and prevent nanoparticle formation.
• Copper and silver nanoparticles are particularly sensitive to oxygen infiltration.

4. Add a strong reducing agent to reduce the metal cations to their elemental state. Allow several hours for particle formation.

• Once the ions are in their elemental (neutral state) they will begin to form clusters with other metal particles.
• Once the particles reach a size large enough to be "seen" by the capping ligand, the ligand will attatch to the surface and halt the growth by interfering with other metal particles trying to attatch to your new nanocluster.

Congratulations you have just formed a nanoparticle alloy -- maybe!