A mechano-colloidal approach for the controlled synthesis of metal nanoparticles

A mechano-colloidal approach was developed to produce Au nanotadpoles. It comprises the generation of seeds by ball-milling from a solid mixture containing a precursor, reductant, and capping agent, followed by the dispersion of this mixture in water leading to seeded-growth to generate the target nanoparticle morphology. We propose a mechano-colloidal approach marrying the attractive features of both mechanochemical and colloidal syntheses to produce well-defined Au nanoparticles.