Use of ionic liquids (ILs) for the IL-anion size-dependent formation of Cr, Mo and W nanoparticles from metal carbonyl M(CO)6 precursors.

Stable chromium, molybdenum and tungsten nanoparticles are obtained reproducibly by thermal or photolytic decomposition under argon from mononuclear metal carbonyl precursors M(CO)(6) (M=Cr, Mo, W) suspended in the ionic liquids BMim(+)BF(4)(-), BMim(+)OTf(-) and BtMA(+)Tf(2)N(-) (BMim(+)=n-butyl-methyl-imidazolium, BtMA(+)=n-butyl-trimethyl-ammonium, Tf(2)N=N(O(2)SCF(3))(2), OTf=O(3)SCF(3)) with a very small and uniform size of 1 to 1.5 nm in BMim(+)BF(4)(-) which increases with the molecular volume of the ionic liquid anion to approximately 100 nm in BtMA(+)Tf(2)N(-) [characterization by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic light scattering and transmission electron diffraction (TED) analysis].