Issue 28, 2019

Water-soluble metal nanoclusters: recent advances in molecular-level exploration and biomedical applications

Abstract

Water-soluble metal nanoclusters (MNCs) have received extraordinary attention in both fundamental and applied fields due to their ultrasmall size, unique molecular-like properties, rich surface chemistry, benign biocompatibility, and good stability. Currently, the state-of-the-art research on water-soluble MNCs has been upgraded from the nanoscale to the molecular level especially in the following aspects: (1) synthesis of highly luminescent MNCs featuring aggregation-induced emission (AIE), (2) Engineering the ligand shell of MNCs for controllable surface chemistry and (3) Tracking the reductive growth process of MNCs. Such molecular-level research progress of water-soluble MNCs in turn facilitated their development in biomedical applications. In this Frontier Article, we start our discussion by briefly summarizing the recent molecular-level research progress of water-soluble MNCs in the above-mentioned three aspects, followed by our perspectives on these fundamental aspects. Afterwards, the latest advance in biomedical applications of water-soluble MNCs is discussed. We hope that this Frontier Article could stimulate more studies on the molecular- or atomic-level understanding and biomedical applications of water-soluble MNCs.

Graphical abstract: Water-soluble metal nanoclusters: recent advances in molecular-level exploration and biomedical applications

Article information

Article type
Frontier
Submitted
02 Ebr. 2019
Accepted
06 Mezh. 2019
First published
06 Mezh. 2019

Dalton Trans., 2019,48, 10385-10392

Water-soluble metal nanoclusters: recent advances in molecular-level exploration and biomedical applications

X. Dou, X. Chen, H. Zhu, Y. Liu, D. Chen, X. Yuan, Q. Yao and J. Xie, Dalton Trans., 2019, 48, 10385 DOI: 10.1039/C9DT01395D

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