A ten-electron (10e) thiolate-protected Au29(SR)19 cluster: structure prediction and a 'gold-atom insertion, thiolate-group elimination' mechanism

Lin Xiong; Baoliang Peng; Zhongyun Ma; Pu Wang; Yong Pei

doi:10.1039/c6nr09612c

A ten-electron (10e) thiolate-protected Au₂₉(SR)₁₉ cluster: structure prediction and a 'gold-atom insertion, thiolate-group elimination' mechanism

Nanoscale. 2017 Feb 23;9(8):2895-2902. doi: 10.1039/c6nr09612c.

Authors

Lin Xiong¹, Baoliang Peng², Zhongyun Ma¹, Pu Wang¹, Yong Pei¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Xiangtan University, P. R. China. ypnku78@gmail.com.
² Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development (RIPED), PetroChina, P. R. China and Key Laboratory of Nano Chemistry (KLNC), Petrochina, P. R. China.

PMID: 28177034
DOI: 10.1039/c6nr09612c

Abstract

The atomic structure of a ten-electron (10e) thiolate-protected gold cluster, denoted as Au₂₉(SR)₁₉, was theoretically predicted. Based on the prediction of the atomic structure of the 10e Au₂₉(SR)₁₉ cluster, we proposed a novel 'gold-atom insertion, thiolate-group elimination' mechanism to understand the structural evolution of the face-centered-cubic (fcc) thiolate-protected gold clusters. The key step of structural evolution from Au₂₈(SR)₂₀ to Au₂₉(SR)₁₉ and then to the Au₃₀(SR)₁₈ cluster, i.e. the growth of triangle-Au₃ units in the gold cores, is understood from the first insertion of an exterior Au(0) atom into the ligand shell and then cleavage of μ₃-SR groups.