Green synthesis of silver nanoclusters supported on carbon nanodots: enhanced photoluminescence and high catalytic activity for oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract

Metal nanoclusters exhibit unusual optical and catalytic properties due to their unique electronic structures. Here, surfactant-free silver nanoclusters supported on carbon nanodots were synthesized through a facile and green approach with only glucose and AgNO₃ as precursors and without any other protecting ligands and reducing agents. The hybrid nanoclusters exhibited enhanced blue fluorescence compared to the carbon nanodots. More importantly, the “surface-clean” silver nanoclusters have remarkable electrocatalytic performance towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) with the most efficient four-electron transfer process. Moreover, compared with commercial Pt/C catalyst, the Pt-free hybrid clusters showed comparable catalytic performance for ORR but much higher tolerance to methanol crossover. Such silver nanoclusters will provide broad applications in fluorescence-related areas and in fuel cells as an efficient Pt-free catalyst with low cost and high catalytic performance.