Synthesis of rare-earth metal and rare-earth metal-fluoride nanoparticles in ionic liquids and propylene carbonate

• Marvin Siebels,
• Lukas Mai,
• Laura Schmolke,
• Kai Schütte,
• Juri Barthel,
• Junpei Yue,
• Jörg Thomas,
• Bernd M. Smarsly,
• Anjana Devi,
• Roland A. Fischer and
• Christoph Janiak

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1881–1894, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.180

• ([BMIm][BF4]), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ([BMIm][NTf2]) and in propylene carbonate (PC) yield oxide-free rare-earth metal nanoparticles (RE-NPs) in [BMIm][NTf2] and PC for RE = Pr, Gd and Er or rare-earth metal-fluoride nanoparticles (REF3-NPs) in the fluoride-donating

• diameters of (1.5 ± 0.5) to (5 ± 1) nm. The characterization was completed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Keywords: ionic liquids; metal amidinates; rare-earth metal-fluoride nanoparticles; rare-earth metal nanoparticles; soft wet-chemical synthesis; Introduction Rare-earth (RE) elements

• obtained rare-earth fluoride particles were not phase-pure [8]. An alternative method for synthesizing rare-earth metal-fluoride nanoparticles is the use of rare-earth metal amidinates as precursors [9][10][11][12]. Metal amidinates are coordination compounds [13][14] and used, for example, as catalysts in