Strategies for Assembling Pd and Pt Atoms

Michael N. Vargaftik, Natalia Yu. Kozitsyna, Natalia V. Cherkashina, Rimma I. Rudy, Dmitry I. Kochubey, and Ilya I. Moiseev 

One of the challenging aims of cluster chemistry is to elucidate the factors controlling the formation of cluster molecules and small metal crystallites. Despite remarkable achievements in the synthesis and structural characterization of metal clusters, the pathways to the assembly of large numbers of metal atoms in the course of the synthesis of high nuclearity metal clusters remains rather mysterious. Some insight into this problem has been gained by recent studies of so-called giant clusters of palladium and platinum. 

By this time, substantial experience in the synthesis of low-valence noble metal complexes in the form of non-crystalline, colloid-like samples has been accumulated. For instance, a series of amorphous, high-molecular weight palladium complexes, which had remarkable catalytic capability, had been obtained starting from low-nuclearity Pd(I) clusters and Pd(II) complexes.  

An early attempt to establish the nature of such species was made by G. Schmid et al. in the study of the non-crystalline phosphine cluster Au55(PPh3)i2Cl6. The structure of this cluster was proposed on the basis of data from high-resolution 

a series of Chini type clusters have been identified  

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