Seed-catalyzed reduction

The Kelly group have developed a number of seed-mediated procedures for the growth of silver nanoplates. The first method involved the reduction of silver nitrate by ascorbic add in the presence of seeds, followed by a seed-mediated reduction of silver nitrate by ascorbic acid in the presence of PVA [3]. The group s second method involved the reduction of silver nitrate by ascorbic acid in the presence of trisodium citrate and PVP [132]. In this case, the position of the in-plane dipole SPR could be tuned by varying the concentration of citrate present. The reaction was carried out at room temperature but interestingly, as the temperature was increased, the monodispersity and uniformity of the particles was also increased. Another procedure has also been developed within the group which involved the silver seed-catalyzed reduction of Ag by ascorbic acid. Unlike the previous method, no additional citrate was required and the concentration of... 

The Electroless plating deposition (ELP) technique is based upon the controlled auto-catalyzed decomposition or reduction of meta-stable metallic salt complexes on target surfaces [75]. In the case of palladium, usually, the substrate should be pre-seeded with palladium nuclei in an activation solution in order to reduce the induction period of the autocatalytic plating reaction. For some applications, this technique provides strong benefits such as uniformity of deposits on complex shapes and hardness. Palladium and some of its alloys are among the few metals that can be deposited in this way [11]. However, this method presents some drawbacks such as difficult thickness control, costly losses of palladium in the bath, not guaranteed purity of the deposit and so on [75]. 

Operation of the FAS system involves an enzyme-catalyzed cycle of condensation, reduction, dehydration and a second reduction (Figure 3.2), and is dependent upon the supply of a carbon source and energy provision in the forms of ATP, NADH and NADPH. The extreme importance of acetyl-CoA carboxylase activity to the functioning of FAS may be deduced from the observed close proximity of each system to each other in plastidic membranes of maturing rape seed (Slabas and Smith, 1988). 

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