Chiral Superatomic Nanoclusters Ag 47 Induced by the Ligation of Amino Acids

• Published in: Angewandte Chemie International Edition Vol. 60; no. 20; pp. 11430 - 11435
• Main Authors: Liu, Wen‐Di, Wang, Jia‐Qi, Yuan, Shang‐Fu, Chen, Xi, Wang, Quan‐Ming
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany 10.05.2021
• Subjects: cluster compounds; silver; chirality; superatoms; amino acids
• ISSN: 1433-7851; 1521-3773
• DOI: 10.1002/anie.202100972

Silver nanoclusters containing Ag 0 atoms protected by amino acids were synthesized and characterized. Chiral superatomic silver nanoclusters [Ag 47 L 12 (C≡C t Bu) 16 ]BF 4 (L= l‐/d ‐valine or l‐/d ‐isoleucine) have been prepared by reducing AgC≡C t Bu and amino acids (AAs) with NaBH 4 . Single crystal X‐ray diffraction revealed that these clusters have T symmetry, and the Ag 47 metal kernel can be viewed as a tetracapped truncated tetrahedron (Ag 17 ) surrounded with six W‐shaped Ag 5 units. The clusters are homochiral as evidenced by CD measurements. As for the strong CD signals, large contributions are found from the occupied Ag s,p states (superatomic D states) near the Fermi level. Electron counting revealed that these clusters are 18‐electron systems, suggesting they are superatomic clusters. The superatomic nature with a 1S 2 1P 6 1D 10 configuration was supported by DFT calculations. This work paves the way of taking AAs as facile chiral induction agents for the synthesis of metal nanoclusters.