Seed‐Mediated Growth of Colloidal Metal Nanocrystals: Scaling up the Production through Geometric and Stoichiometric Analyses

Abstract Despite the remarkable progress in shape‐controlled synthesis of noble‐metal nanocrystals, there still exists a major gap between academic studies and industrial applications. This gap can be largely attributed to the inability to produce nanocrystals in large quantities while retaining uniformity and good control over both size and shape. Here we provide a new perspective on increasing the volume of production during a synthesis of colloidal nanocrystals via seed‐mediated growth. We demonstrate that the yield of Pd octahedra and Pd@Pt_3−4L (L: atomic layers) core–shell octahedra with different sizes can be increased from ca. 2 mg to over 500 mg without compromising the product quality. Specifically, we apply geometric and stoichiometric analyses to calculate the minimum amounts of reagents needed for the complete evolution of Pd cubic seeds into Pd octahedra, and subsequently for the formation of Pd@Pt_3−4L core–shell octahedra through conformal Pt coating. The simple analyses allow us to obtain uniform products by avoiding homogeneous nucleation while minimizing the waste of reagents.