A new synthetic method toward bimetallic ruthenium platinum nanoparticles; composition induced structural changes

The reaction of Pt(dba)(2) with Ru(COD)(COT) in various proportions under dihydrogen in the presence of PVP leads to the formation of bimetallic nanoparticles of definite compositions resulting from the relative concentration of the two complexes in the initial solution, The progressive incorporation of ruthenium into the platinum matrix leads to structural changes from face-centered cubic (fcc) for high platinum contents to hexagonal close-packed (hcp) for high ruthenium contents. For the composition Pt1Ru3 a contraction of the size of the particles (ca. 1.1 nm) and of the size distribution indicates the presence of a new phase consisting of monodisperse particles for which a model of truncated twinned octahedrons of 79 atoms was proposed.